YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON CONSERVATION INITIATIVE

The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative holds a bold and ambition vision of an interconnected system of wild lands and waters stretching from Yellowstone to Yukon, harmonizing the needs of people with those of nature.

The Yellowstone to Yukon region is the most intact large mountain landscape on Earth. As one of the few places in the world where large carnivores and hooved animals like bighorn sheep, elk, and moose continue to thrive, we know that keeping the region connected and protected is key to sustaining these animals and people now and into the future. To maintain the region in this intact state is an unparalleled global opportunity.

Recognizing that communities need equal opportunities and rights to thrive, we respect human diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental and social justice, and oppose actions and policies that undermine these principles within the projects and work that we do in advancing our vision on the ground.

Organizational goals:

Goal 1: Protect core habitat, such that wide-ranging wildlife has sufficient core habitat to thrive.

The Yellowstone to Yukon region is home to diverse ecosystems including alpine, forests, riparian and grassland, and as headwaters provide the source of clean, safe drinking water for millions in North America. Our current goal is to legally protect 14 million acres of priority areas within the 2,100 mile-region so that wide-ranging wildlife like grizzly bears and wolverine, and their key habitats, are protected in perpetuity.

Goal 2: Keep core habitat connected through functional wildlife corridors.

In addition to core protected areas, functional wildlife corridors are critical to maintain, enhance or restore ecological connectivity among and between those protected areas. We are focused on achieving landscape-scale connectivity in areas:
• where connectivity is already compromised
• where activities threaten to sever existing connectivity
• key to connecting core areas and supporting resilience to climate change

Our current goal is to secure 10,000 acres of private lands for ecological corridors, advance wildlife crossings on the four busiest roads in the region, and support key public lands in having management policies and practices that support connectivity.

Goal 3: Support thriving communities that live in harmony with nature, such that key communities are advancing nature-focused policies, implementing best practices, and advancing impactful co-existence strategies.

Our mission statement reflects our recognition that people and nature are mutually dependent. As mountain communities grapple with rapid population growth and development, many are challenged to envision more sustainable futures for people and ecosystems. We aim to help them be vibrant, inclusive and nature-focused. Our current goal is for at least six key communities striving to be wildlife-friendly by advancing nature-positive policies, implementing best practices, and advancing impactful co-existence.

Overview of Our Strategic Approach
Achieving the above goals will require overcoming key challenges/threats such that:
• Federal, provincial, Indigenous and local government agencies and decision-makers have the will, knowledge and resources to support (or at least not impede) conservation action
• Key stakeholders, rightsholders (including Indigenous communities), constituencies, decision-makers, and opinion-leaders are empowered, organized, and have the information and will to support (or at least not impede) conservation action
• Options for improving the sustainability of key communities are identified that are compatible with ensuring a connected and healthy Y2Y landscape that meets the needs of nature and people
• The NGO community and its supporters are able to respond at the necessary scale, scope and speed to crucial threats, focal challenges, and action priorities

Our Strategies:
We have identified five core strategies that we believe will help us achieve our goals, improve the status of our conservation targets, and advance the Y2Y vision:
1. Support advancement of indigenous-led new land protections and integrity of existing protected areas
2. Advance voluntary private land conservation in key corridors that matter at the Y2Y scale
3. Advance wildlife-road crossing structures across the busiest roads in the Yellowstone to Yukon region
4. Ensure management of unprotected public land in key corridors maintains connectivity
5. Promote nature-focused communities

One of our greatest strengths is our ability to form and lead powerful collaboratives that avoid duplicating skills and use resources efficiently. There are few comparable efforts operating at the scale of Y2Y, and there are even fewer that engage in such widespread collaboration. Everything Y2Y does, we do with our partners. Whether it's other conservation groups, local landowners, businesses, government agencies, funders and donors, Native American and First Nations communities, scientists, or otherwise, these partners are the force behind our momentum. To date, we have worked with over 700 partners rightsholders and stakeholders on conservation solutions that benefit nature and support human well-being. Y2Y's role is to bring the partners, the matter and energy, together to achieve as a network what none of us can accomplish alone: a conservation initiative that sees the world as nature sees it. We knit together the landscape from one jurisdiction to the next.

Within the Y2Y Team, Y2Y's Board of Directors contributes to our strategic planning and fiduciary oversight from a rich combined experience in the fields of law, science, government, fundraising, finance and the arts. Our team's staff and strategic advisors are responsible for some of the most important conservation achievements of our time. Our network of funders, donors and other supporters believe in the Yellowstone to Yukon vision, and know that we have the creativity, determination and collective experience to break new trails in conservation.

Today, the remarkable Yellowstone to Yukon landscape provides some of the highest biodiversity and largest intact wildlife habitat on the planet – and its wildest experiences. The bold vision formed in 1993 is an integral part of that success.

This unique region stretches across a 2,100-mile Rocky Mountain landscape. Y2Y is the only organization dedicated to securing the long-term ecological health of this entire region, and the first to consider conservation in this landscape at a continental scale.

A peer-reviewed scientific paper shows not only is the uniquely collaborative Yellowstone to Yukon vision working, but that conservation would not have happened at the same rate without it.

Our track record is strong. Since 1993, the actions of Y2Y and partners have resulted in:
• Overall protection increasing by over 80%
• The average size of new protected areas growing by 56%
• Protected areas being created nearly twice as quickly, far outpacing other regions
• 117 wildlife highway crossing structures being built, with more in the works
• Bear numbers more than tripling in U.S. designated grizzly recovery zones
• Grizzly bear ranges starting to expand in the U.S., more than doubling in size

Moving forward, as we seek conservation solutions that benefit nature and support human well-being in the Yellowstone to Yukon region, we are focused on leveraging strategic opportunities, taking projects to scale, and using systems thinking to catalyze systems-wide change.