A number of U.S. enviro groups are pushing plans to preserve and restore vast stretches of land in an effort to combat the “islandization” of wildlife habitat, or the fragmentation of natural land that makes it difficult for creatures to survive and ecosystems to properly function. The Wildlands Project, based in Tucson, Ariz., is at the forefront of the bioregional conservation movement, with a grand plan for connecting preserves and other natural areas with hundreds of miles of “biological corridors” to create a system of wild lands that stretches across North America. Along the same lines, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies has a plan to protect and restore 18 million acres of land in the intermountain West, and other enviros want to create a latticework of preserves, called the Sky Islands Wildlands Network, that would include portions of Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico.
