Work on the The Heart of the West Wildlands Network began when a number of biologists, conservation activists and other Wildlands Project affiliates noted a critical yet unaddressed linkage between the northern Rockies and the southern Rockies along North America's Spine of the Continent Megalinkage.

The Heart of the West region spans southeast Idaho, southwest Wyoming, northwest Colorado and northeast Utah. Once referred to as the Serengeti of North America, much of this area is dominated by the high plains of the Wyoming Basins Ecoregion.

This vast and varied landscape is home to many species of native fauna and flora, many now at risk. Today, exponentially increasing human use of the area is destroying and fragmenting the biological fabric of the land. For example, almost 90% of the federal land in southwest Wyoming is currently leased for oil and gas development. In response, regional conservation groups and scientists quickly organized to form the Heart of the West Coalition, and heeded the call to map critical areas of habitat that should be protected to ensure connectivity across the landscape, and maintain viable populations of species within the Heart of the West.

This resulted in the completion of the Heart of the West Wildlands Network in 2003 and the publication of the comprehensive Heart of the West Conservation Plan in 2004. The plan provides a scientific basis for land mangers and conservation activists to shape land use in deference to the ecological needs of the land and the focal species who rely on those special habitats.

With the help of our implementation partners, we are working to ensure that management consistent with the Heart of the West Wildlands Network, and the management prescriptions within the conservation plan, becomes a reality on the ground. The coalition is currently implementing the plan in the following ways: first, advocating protection for core areas and landscape linkages; second, ensuring that revised agency land use plans are in line with our conservation plan; and third, affecting national policy that drives land management in the Heart of the West.

For more information, check out Wild Utah Project's website at www.wildutahproject.org