Habitat Connectivity and Functionality
Goal: Improve and maintain habitat connectivity and functionality at the landscape scale.
Objectives
Terrestrial habitats are connected across both public and private lands, allowing the movement of native plants and wildlife to meet their life history needs.
Aquatic habitats are connected, allowing aquatic organisms to move within lakes, streams, and floodplains to meet their life history needs.
Healthy Habitats and Biodiversity
Goal: Maximize self-sustaining native species biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.
Objectives
Native species diversity and resilience are maintained or restored.
Populations of focal species are stable or increasing.
Ecosystem integrity and resilience is sustained or restored.
Water Quality and Hydrologic Integrity
Goal: Improve and maintain water quality and hydrologic function to support resilient aquatic systems for all life that depend on them
Objectives
Headwater wetlands, streams, and riparian areas are healthy and resilient to disturbances.
Streams are connected to their floodplains and support aquatic organism passage; stream function supports hydrologic connectivity.
Human-built infrastructure is resilient to extreme water fluctuations and doesn’t degrade hydrologic function.
Excess erosion, sedimentation, nutrients, and contaminants in Lake Superior tributaries are reduced and healthy water quality is maintained.
Extreme Weather Preparedness
Goal: Maximize the resilience of ecosystems and communities to extreme weather.
Objectives
In extreme weather conditions, species diversity and ecosystem function are resilient, including microhabitats and climatic gradients created by topography, elevation, and hydrology.
Landscape connectedness is sustained or restored, which allows species to move freely to find suitable microhabitats.
Project planning considers projected future weather conditions, employs standardized tools, and creates opportunities to revise and change courses, as needed.
Composite indicators for extreme weather show a positive trend over time for the Lake Superior Basin of Wisconsin. A composite indicator may include attributes like connectivity, fragmentation, potential for carbon sequestration, intact habitat cores, landscape condition, stream condition, etc.
Community Engagement
Goal: Engage communities in conservation-related work, and foster connections and reciprocal relationships to care for the Lake Superior Basin.
Objectives
Trust is built among our community and partners through a sustained presence and novel means of education and engagement in the Basin.
Conservation is guided by the values, interests, cultures, and needs of local communities.
The community is engaged in meaningful conservation projects that result in positive conservation outcomes and promote human well-being.
High level decision makers are aware, present, and engaged with conservation needs within the community.
The community understands the potential and limitations of our landscape for subsistence and economic growth.
Opportunities for high quality outdoor recreation are safe and available to those with all abilities.
Prepare for and Address Current and Emerging Threats
Goal: Mitigate current and emerging environmental threats through strategic and coordinated conservation efforts.
Objectives
Systems are in place to detect and alert our communities to emerging threats and stressors.
Community representatives and policy-makers understand and support science-based solutions for mitigating emerging threats.
The negative impacts of non-local beings are reduced to ensure ecosystem health.
The negative impacts of other threats and stressors (e.g. contaminants; algal blooms; inadequate infrastructure; plants, fish, and wildlife diseases; etc.) are reduced to ensure ecosystem health.