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Snapshot of the Northern Great Plains map showing North Dakota and Montana

Mapping the resilient Northern Great Plains

The Nature Conservancy

GreenInfo team: Maegan Leslie Torres

Project years: 2019

Tags: Analysis GIS Services Public Health Social Justice/Equity

Overview

What challenges is this project trying to solve?

  • The Nature Conservancy has worked with Native tribes and ranchers across the Northern Great Plains across various states and wants to showcase their work in that region
  • Showing the scale of these projects to the general public would be a challenge in visual and creative mapping.

What were the client’s objectives?

  • To create a series of maps that provided both distinct messaging and visually-compelling imagery that highlights the lands in question.
  • To communicate about TNC's work and partnerships within the Northern Great Plains Region with tribal partners and local ranchers.

Results

  • A series of six showcase maps, including three thematic views of the region and three highlights of specific TNC preserves.
  • These maps won First Place for a Map Series or Atlas at the 2020 Esri User Conference, the world’s largest mapping industry event.
Northern Great Plains 1
(1/6) The first thematic view of TNC's Tribal Partnerships
Northern Great Plains 2
(2/6) The second thematic view of TNC Values in these lands
Northern Great Plains 3
(3/6) The third thematic view of the region's sustainable rangelands
Northern Great Plains 4
(4/6) Highlight of Irene Preserve located in Wyoming
Northern Great Plains 5
(5/6) Highlight of Matador Ranch located in Montana
Northern Great Plains 6
(6/6) Highlight of Davis Ranch and Ordway Prairie located in the Dakotas

The Work

The Nature Conservancy has a big, landscape-scale story to tell about its work with Native tribes and ranchers across the prairies of the Northern Great Plains. So we made a series of six showcase maps of the work, including three thematic views of the whole regions and three highlights of specific TNC preserves.

This project presented a challenge to incorporate complex messaging and vastly different map scales across several maps that we wanted to have a clear family resemblance while also each presenting its distinct message.

We built the maps entirely in ArcGIS Pro, including setting all type, iconography, and inset photos.