Dual defense: informing future study and conservation decisions for the sentinel landscape program and military-based conservation

Abstract

The Sentinel Landscape Partnership (SLP) is a unique collaboration between military, federal, state, and private entities to advance military readiness through environmental conservation. Currently, the SLP lacks a robust evaluation of performance across program sites and environments. Therefore, I conducted a literature review to identify gaps in knowledge and to offer an assessment of approaches that can be evaluated and used by SLP coordinators. Utilizing the MSU Library and Google Scholar as my primary search database, I seared using the terms “Sentinel Landscape”, “Sentinel Landscape Partnership”, and “Sentinel Landscape Program” resulting in six relevant academic documents out of 231 returns. In addition, I created a Sentinel Landscape Priority Index (SLPI) combining military installation proximity, total species richness, imperiled species richness, protection-weighted range imperiled species, land cover, and groundwater data to direct and inform conservation efforts around military installations and within Sentinel Landscapes. The SLPI covers the continental United States at 330m and identifies the highest value land for conservation based on the six input data layers above. I recommend military installation commanders use the SLPI to identify lands most in need of conservation and recommend that SLP coordinators use it to identify lands for inclusion when implementing new Sentinel Landscapes.