The establishment of parks, wildlife management areas, and other protective measures has allowed land managers in the region to meet the 30×30 Global Biodiversity target of conserving 30% of the land base by 2030. While vital, these protected areas are becoming increasingly isolated, like islands within a broader landscape that is undergoing rapid change. Ecosystems cannot function properly without connectivity. The fragmentation of wildland habitats and disruptions in the flow of natural processes undermine ecosystem integrity over time and threaten the foundational life-support systems we all depend on for survival.

For example, large carnivores, such as bears, cougars, wolverines and lynx, require large home ranges that typically support low population densities. They are the first to be displaced or eliminated from a given region, as they cannot survive in small, isolated patches where resources are scarce and they are exposed to increased threats from human activities. The failure to provide wide functional corridors for these apex species reduces their capacity to regulate predator-prey relationships within lower levels of the food web. When top predators disappear, the populations of ungulates and medium-sized predators can rapidly increase, exerting unsustainable pressures on both plants and animals at lower levels of the food web.

As natural networks of ecological connectivity are severed, wildland habitats are fragmented into smaller, isolated patches, where genetic diversity erodes, and the adaptive capacities of animal and plant species are increasingly threatened. These smaller habitat patches may appear functional, but they have lost their capacity to withstand and recover from both human and natural disturbances. There are tipping points in rapidly changing landscapes at which critical thresholds of ecosystem resilience are exceeded, leading to a fundamental restructuring of animal and plant communities.