We need to improve the effectiveness of conservation investments by federal, state, and local governments. The Smart Links concept links conservation funding with techniques to promote smarter growth and compatible development on nearby lands. A Smart Links funding program has two goals:
- to ensure that the public’s acquisition funds are not spent in a way that allows conservation lands to be surrounded and degraded by continuing patterns of sprawl, and
- to ensure that conservation expenditures play a leveraging role by putting into place smart growth policies—such as urban revitalization, development patterns that conserve waterways and habitat, and well-targeted improvements to transportation and...