Room to roam

Wildlands Network, formerly the Wildlands Project, is largely credited with moving the science of conservation biology out of the laboratory and onto the land, where they've worked for more than 15 years to create room for wildlife to roam.

Yet as more conservation organizations adopted the scientific approach Wildlands was advancing, their niche began to get crowded. To support Wildland's mission and future work, Pyramid partnered with its board and staff to develop a five-year strategic plan. The plan presented a dual approach: 1) work with regional and national partners to create wildlife corridor demonstration projects on the ground; and 2) work at the grasstops level to communicate the urgency of biodiversity loss and the opportunities for wildlife connectivity as a means to address the effects of global warming.

Our work included a series of stakeholder interviews, focus groups with key partners, participation and presentations at their national partner workshops and, ultimately, creation of the new plan. As part of the strategic planning process, the need for a new organizational name and identity surfaced, as well as the need for new communications tools to support their collaborative efforts moving forward. Pyramid worked with the Wildlands Network staff to create a new visual identity as well as a new website.

Our work with Wildlands continued as they sought to expand their website with additional features to support their TrekEast campaign. TrekEast is a 5,000-mile journey undertaken by one of Wildlands’ most influential conservationists, John Davis. The initiative aims to garner support for Wildlands’ plans of creating a band of connected habitat across the East Coast. 

Our work started by designing a look and feel for TrekEast that was distinct yet compatible with the main Wildlands Network brand.  We then redesigned the homepage and created additional website features for TrekEast, including a blog and a customized Facebook page. At the heart of the TrekEast site, we built an interactive map of Davis' trek up the east coast featuring location-specific blog posts detailing his current progress and reflections on the many aspects of the Wildlands initiative.