As a not-for-profit, A2A is people powered. We have two dozen volunteers who support the organization's activities and we are ever grateful for their invaluable energy and contributions.

We are seeking two new volunteers to help with ongoing administration and twice-a-year newsletter layout:

1. Office administration
   Accounting, filing, record keeping. A few hours a week in our office at 19 Reynolds Road, Lansdowne ON. Someone who is dedicated, reliable, and attentive to detail.
2. Newsletter layout
   Adding stories and photos into our InDesign template twice a year. Integrating feedback and revisions. Someone who is responsive, comfortable in InDesign, and has the software.

​If either position sounds like a good fit for you, please email a statement of interest to Program Director, Lilith Wyatt with the subject line "Volunteering".

Dear A2A members, partners, and friends,

Just in time to beat the Winter Solstice, CLICK HERE to see the Algonquin to Adirondacks Collaborative's Fall 2015 newsletter. Read on for stories such as:

• A court challenge to support the Endangered Species Act,
• New funding for Canadian land trusts,
• A2A land steward confessions,
• Wildlife findings along highway 401 (95 Snapping Turtles),
• And much more! 

Best wishes this holiday season from all of us at A2A!

Dear A2A members and partners,

We are thrilled to introduce to you A2A's new look! Our collaborators at 1dea.ca have this to say: "A2A's new logo represents respect, harmony, and connectivity across the A2A landscape".

Our new image reflects our organization's evolution over the past few years, which has only been possible with your support. We have grown from an effective local group working at the pinchpoint of the region, to a truly regional collaborative supporting 45+ partner organizations, with a board that represents First Nations, U.S., and Canada, and a great team of staff and volunteers. This is what we do:
​
  1.  Support 45+ partner organizations with: 

• Science
• Research
• Education
• Communication

  2.  Build the A2A Trail (our flagship project)
  3.  Facilitate Conservation Action Plans (CAPs)

As Roxanne Razavi, Ph.D. says in her introduction to the research at hand: "What is the best way to spend resources to protect ecosystems? How do coordinated efforts over space and time compare to local planning? Are large lump allocations of funds more effective than small allocations of funds over long periods of time? These are questions that we face as managers and custodians of the Finger Lakes.

Earlier this year, an important study by aquatic scientists posed these questions and revealed that the most efficient way to spend conservation dollars – when ecological connectivity is at issue – is at large spatial scales. Read more about their case study on migratory fishes in the Great Lakes below, and check out Fishwerks, the exciting tool they’ve developed to improve fish habitat."

The study's abstract is as follows: 

A clear call for the conservation of critical corridors

[Article below originally posted on Reuters here. Research paper published in Science here.]

"Habitat destruction along routes taken by the world's migratory birds poses an increasing peril to these long-distance fliers, with a vast majority crossing terrain that nations are inadequately protecting, according to scientists.
The researchers said on Thursday they tracked the migratory routes, stopover locations, breeding grounds and wintering locations of 1,451 migratory species and assessed about 450,000 protected areas like national parks and other reserves.

They found 1,324 species, about 91 percent, journeyed through locales that were not safeguarded from threats like development.

"This is important because migratory species cover vast distances and rely on an intact series of habitats in which they can rest and feed on their long journeys," said conservation scientist Richard Fuller of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the University of Queensland.

"If even a single link in this chain of sites is lost for a species, it could lead to major declines or even its extinction."
The birds traverse many different countries where conservation efforts vary.

The problem was most acute in North Africa, Central Asia and along the coasts of East Asia. Countries in these regions maintain relatively few protected areas, and existing ones do not overlap sufficiently with the routes of migratory birds.

For small birds, the opportunity to feed and build up energy reserves for the next leg of their journeys is essential for survival, said conservation scientist Claire Runge of CEED, the University of Queensland and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"Loss of these critical sites means they no longer have the energy needed to make the journeys, and they simply perish along the way," Runge said.

The bar-tailed godwit is a bird that migrates from Arctic breeding grounds to Australia and New Zealand. Along the way, the birds stop to rest and feed at Yellow Sea mudflats in China, North Korea and South Korea.

"Many of these critical sites have been lost to land reclamation owing to urban, industrial and agricultural expansion, and the species is undergoing a rapid decline," Runge said.

Runge called for creating new protected areas in key locations, improving management of existing protected areas and coordinating conservation actions across international borders.

"Common migratory species have been lost in the past, for example the Eskimo curlew, and our world gets poorer every time we lose a species," Fuller said.

The research was published in the journal Science and can be found here.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)"