Diagram showing core reserves, buffers, and corridors connecting protected areas. Diagram courtesy of The Wildlands Project Sky Islands Alliance members map existing reserves and the ranges of jaguar and Mexican wolf in the Southwest and Mexico. Photo courtesy of Rod Mondt

The Wildlands Project, North America The Wildlands approach focuses on three types of protected areas to provide the necessary size and diversity to maintain healthy populations of plants and animals: core reserves that encompass large areas to ensure ecological integrity of entire ecosystems; buffer zones that shield against the impacts of human activities; and ecologically intact corridors that connect these reserves. These corridors are essential to allow the dispersal, migration, and recolonization of animals and plants among the core reserves. This allows for the necessary genetic exchange among populations to maintain adaptability, as well as pathways for migration in response to climate change or other ecological disruption. The Wildlands Project's large-scale ecosystem approach to conservation is solidly based on conservation biology and the widespread understanding, and past experience, that small, disconnected parks cannot protect biodiversity over the longer term. 2 of 2