Defenders' Experts
Section 6001
The Conservation Professional's Guide to Integrating Conservation and Transportation Planning
After 100 years of road building, the United States in now criss-crossed with more than four million miles of roadways. Our ever-expanding highway network and the development they foster pose serious threats to our wildlife, including roadkill, pollution, invasive species and habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation.
Highway projects are often planned without detailed information on core conservation areas, sensitive resources or important habitat that might lie within the selected corridor. Conflicts do not come to light until the environmental review process, which then becomes more expensive and time consuming as transportation and resource officials attempt to reconcile infrastructure and conservation activities.
Section 6001 Provisions Help Reduce Conflicts
Recognizing this inherent conflict between highway planning and wildlife conservation, Congress included a small but profound provision (Section 6001) in the 2005 highway bill that requires:
- Transportation planners must consult with state, tribal and local agencies responsible for land use management, natural resources, environmental protection, conservation and historic preservation
- The consultation shall involve comparison of transportation plans to conservation plans or maps and comparison of transportation plans to inventories of natural or historic resources.
- In consultation with federal, state and tribal land management, wildlife and regulatory agencies, each long range transportation plan shall include a discussion of potential environmental mitigation activities and potential areas to carry out these activities, including activities that may have the greatest potential to restore and maintain the environmental functions affected by the long-range statewide transportation plan.
Getting Started with Section 6001
This guide is designed to help conservation professionals – from state wildlife agency employees, federal land and resource managers and non-governmental conservation advocates – become effective partners in integrating conservation and transportation planning.
Use this handy checklist to get started
Transportation Planning 101 gives you a
brief but thorough overview of how our roads and highways are planned.
Conservation Planning 101 is a quick background on the history and current state of conservation planning.
In Your State compiles special state-specific information for integrating transportation and conservation planning.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) will answer your burning questions and allows you to submit your own.
Other Resources compiles additional helpful resources.
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