Connecting Landscapes (CoLa): new tool to facilitate conservation led development

Connecting Landscapes (CoLa) is a new decision support system (DSS) designed to make it easier to integrate assessments of habitat connectivity into land-use planning and development.

CoLa addresses the urgent need to reconcile biodiversity conservation with economic development, especially in the face of increasing landscape fragmentation and biodiversity loss. It builds upon and integrates two established software tools—UNICOR and CDPOP—to model species-specific functional connectivity, population dynamics, and genetic exchange across landscapes.

Jantz, P., Macdonald, D.W., Gonzalez, I., et al. 2025. Connecting Landscapes: A decision support system to facilitate conservation led development. Environmental Modelling & Software 192: 106576.

Connecting Landscapes (CoLa)

While users have numerous connectivity tools to choose from, CoLa is unique in that it provides access to high-performance, scalable connectivity tools in a fully interactive GUI that includes a map viewer supporting point-and-click scenario editing. It enables users to better understand, simulate, and evaluate trade-offs between development and conservation scenarios using spatially explicit, data-driven models. CoLa’s ease of use, speed, and map interface encourages collaborative analyses and facilitates communication with stakeholders.

CoLa is available as a cloud-based or locally installable application with a graphical user interface (GUI), making it accessible to non-technical users such as policymakers and conservation practitioners.

The system integrates three connectivity tools that incorporate key aspects of species biology and ecology, providing statistical summaries and maps of core movement areas, important corridors, and population genetic structure:

Cumulative Resistant Kernels (CRK): provide an estimate of the potential number of individuals that can move to any cell in the landscape, given the distribution of source points, landscape resistance to movement, and dispersal capacity. CRK highlight core movement areas.
Factorial Least Cost Corridors (FLCC): estimate the potential movement frequency between all pairs of source points, given the distribution of source points, landscape resistance to movement, and dispersal capacity. FLCC highlight areas that are most important for mediating long distance movement in the landscape.
CDPOP: A landscape genetics simulator that models individual-based mating, dispersal, and mortality over time, allowing users to assess effects of land use and conservation on population size, genetic diversity, and structure.

The primary inputs to the DSS are 1) a resistance surface, representing the species-specific cost of moving through the landscape; and 2) source points that represent the distribution of individuals in the landscape. The DSS supports scenario design and analysis with several spatial tools that allow users to modify resistance surfaces and source point distributions to simulate infrastructure development, habitat restoration, or development mitigation measures. It includes tools for comparing scenarios, prioritizing core movement areas and corridors, and visualizing outputs in maps and charts.

CoLa workshops have been conducted in eleven countries from 2024-2025, reaching hundreds of practitioners across government agencies, NGOs, and academia. Making tools like CoLa more accessible to managers and policy makers via workshops and tutorials is an important step in narrowing the implementation gap for connectivity conservation. When powerful, easy-to-implement tools are available to a wider constituency of stakeholders, especially those with a direct interest in formulating policy and exploring alternative conservation and development options, there is great potential to make progress towards well-connected landscapes that are needed to sustain Earth’s ecosystems.

State	Year	Policy	Description
New Hampshire	2026	SB592	Enables regional, conservation, and energy resource planning for habitat strongholds and wildlife corridors
New Hampshire	2019	SB200	Requires the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to consider fish and wildlife crossings and mitigation measures in all future road and culvert projects
New Hampshire	2016	SB376	Requires the fish and game department to identify existing and needed wildlife corridors connecting wildlife habitats in the state and to make recommendations for legislative changes

State	Year	Policy	Description
Maine	2023	LD258	Appropriates $7.5 million to Department of Transportation to improve roadways with potential adaptations for wildlife
Maine	2023	LD1881	Establishes compensation fee program relating to fish and wildlife habitats and associated corridors, including compensation paid by solar energy development
Maine	2023	LD508	Requires Department of Environmental Protection to review its permitting laws concerning climate change, habitat connectivity, ecological resilience, and coastal environments

State	Year	Policy	Description
New Jersey	2025	S3618	Directs state agencies to develop a Wildlife Corridor Action Plan
New Jersey	2024	S3916/A5486	Expands eligibility for existing wildlife fencing programs by including farmers leasing farmland
New Jersey	2007	NJAC7:13	Requires the state to incorporate wildlife crossings or a natural bank for terrestrial threatened and endangered species and/or species of concern when a new bridge or culvert project would cause habitat fragmentation

State	Year	Policy	Description
New Mexico	2023	SB72	Appropriates money to new Wildlife Corridors Fund for implementation of wildlife crossing projects under New Mexico Wildlife Corridor Action Plan
New Mexico	2022	HB 2	Allocates funding for projects to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and allows the Department of Transportation and Department of Game to implement their Wildlife Corridors Action Plan
New Mexico	2019	SB 228	Requires the creation of a Wildlife Corridor Action Plan that includes comprehensive guidance to agencies for identifying, prioritizing and maintaining important areas for wildlife movement

State	Year	Policy	Description
Washington	2023	HB1216/SB5196	Requires Department of Ecology to prepare environmental impact statements for clean energy projects that consider impacts to habitat connectivity and wildlife migration corridors
Washington	2022	SB5689	Provides funding for US 97 Wildlife Crossing Improvements project
Washington	2019	SEO 1031.02	Recognizes the effect of roadways in creating barriers to wildlife movement, breeding, and migrations; the Washington State Department of Transportation will promote and support Practical Solutions and Planning and Environmental Linkages to integrate habitat connectivity and biodiversity plans; will make use of the highway prioritization map known as Habitat Connectivity Investment Priorities; and will corporate and coordinate with other agencies involved in wildlife habitat protection, specifically along highways

Connecting Science to Conservation

Connecting Landscapes (CoLa): new tool to facilitate conservation led development

Jantz, P., Macdonald, D.W., Gonzalez, I., et al. 2025. Connecting Landscapes: A decision support system to facilitate conservation led development. Environmental Modelling & Software 192: 106576.

Connecting Landscapes (CoLa)

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Connecting Landscapes (CoLa): new tool to facilitate conservation led development

About the Author: Patrick Jantz

State	Year	Policy	Description
Vermont	2023	Act59	Vermont's 30x30 law that commits to conserving and maintaining an ecologically functional landscape that sustains biodiversity and maintains landscape connectivity
Vermont	2016	Act 171	Primarily focuses on timber harvesting regulations, but calls for a study of necessary revisions to planning statutes that protect contiguous areas of forestland from fragmentation and promote habitat connectivity between forestlands

State	Year	Policy	Description
Colorado	2026	SB141	Creates optional collision prevention fee to fund wildlife safe passage projects
Colorado	2025	HB1093	Restricts local limits on residential density unless offset elsewhere, exempts areas near wildlife crossings, and allows municipalities to seek judicial review of land use initiatives
Colorado	2023	SB 23-092	Encourages minimal impacts to wildlife migration corridors when constructing solar panel farms
Colorado	2023	SB 214	Appropriates funding to the Colorado Wildlife Safe Passages Fund for wildlife crossing projects
Colorado	2022	SB22-151	Creates a $5 million fund for measures that reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and reconnect habitat fragmented by roads
Colorado	2022	HB22-1072	Expands the scope of Habitat Partnership Program to fund efforts to conserve wildlife migration
Colorado	2021	SJR 21-021	Aims to protect and enhance habitat connectivity in the state through the establishment of a working group to develop state policies on corridors, as well as the commission of a report on state corridors and voluntary policies to support willing landowners in improving connectivity
Colorado	2019	EO 11	Directs Colorado agencies to identify policy, regulatory, and legislative opportunities to ensure the ongoing conservation of seasonal big game habitat and migration corridors
Colorado	2018	SB 18-143	States explicit goals for Division of Parks and Wildlife to invest in habitat conservation and wildlife crossings

State	Year	Policy	Description
Florida	2024	SB1638	Dedicates annual funding to land purchases, conservation easements, and trail maintenance within Florida Wildlife Corridor
Florida	2023	HB1379	Creates annual appropriation to acquire lands that complete certain linkages and are under high population stress within Florida Wildlife Corridor
Florida	2023	SB2500 sec.146	Provides funding to buy Ocala to Osceola (“O2O”) Wildlife Corridor
Florida	2021	SB976	Tasks state agencies with maintaining wildlife connectivity and designates Florida Wildlife Corridor as an existing physical, geographically defined area
Florida	2021	SB2500	Appropriates $300 million to acquire lands to conserve Florida Wildlife Corridor
Florida	2019	SB7068	Creates a "Multi-use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance Program" that includes protection of wildlife corridors as an intended benefit
Florida	2008	SB542	Amends Florida Forever Act statues to include goals of connecting linkage corridors
Florida	2001	SB1468	Amends Florida Forever Act to establish that land acquisitions should include complete landscape linkages and corridors
Florida	1999	S908	Creates Florida Forever Program, with increased protection of lands that protect threatened or endangered species and plans to create a statewide system of connected landscape linkages