Designing Nature’s Half
Advancing climate adaptation & biodiversity conservation
Turning the 50×50 vision into landscape-scale reality.
The Triple Planetary Crisis
Pollution
Climate Change
Biodiversity Loss
Why Large-Scale Conservation Requires Design
Giving half of the Earth back to nature is not a new idea. Its scientific roots stretch back more than four decades, to the emergence of conservation biology and landscape ecology in the late 20th century—fields that challenged fragmented, site-by-site conservation and began articulating a more systemic approach. A decade later, the first call for conserving and restoring “preferably at least half – of [the] continent as true Wilderness, with its full complement of native species and ecological processes” was published in a non-profit periodical promoting the tenets of conservation biology: Wild Earth.
Today, that unfinished vision collides with a stark reality. The world faces a triple planetary crisis—pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss—an interconnected, wicked problem that cannot be solved through isolated actions or single-sector solutions. Addressing it requires collaboration across boundaries, scales, and disciplines.
Landscape conservation design (LCD) provides a framework for doing exactly that. LCD is a stakeholder-driven, participatory process that applies interdisciplinary science to inform decisions about land use, conservation priorities, and adaptation strategies. By integrating ecological knowledge with social, cultural, and governance realities, LCD supports landscape-scale conservation efforts that are both scientifically credible and socially durable. In practice, it helps diverse actors work toward shared outcomes—building the conditions for collective impact and long-term sustainability. Essays and analyses about LCD can be found on our blog and podcast.
Our Strategy: Design Nature’s Half
Design sustainable landscapes
Conserve 50% by 2050
Protect 1 million species
Restore terrestrial habitats
Mitigate greenhouse gases
Support cooperatives
Latest from the Blog
Latest Podcast Episodes
What makes a marine protected area strong?
World Oceans Day 2026 focuses on the importance of strong marine protected areas, but the answer extends beyond oceans alone. Drawing on firsthand experience from the management planning process for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, this reflection explores why conservation depends not only on protection, but also on continuity. From marine protected areas to landscape-scale conservation, transformational conservation ultimately requires the institutions, governance systems, and decision processes capable of sustaining conservation across social-ecological systems and through time.