The US initiative to 'think big' about landscape-conservation cooperatives is an imaginative approach to conserving species in the face of climate change (Nature 469, 131; 2011) — but thinking needs to be bigger still.

Because climate change is likely to shift entire biomes, we urge proponents to include the entire continent as a management area, with flexible borders between particular units.

We suggest that such cooperatives should collaborate with and learn from other large-scale conservation ventures, such as the International Model Forest Network — an integrated resource-management system that has operated globally since 1992 — and Natura 2000, in which different sectors and agencies are collaborating across Europe to conserve biodiversity.

Cooperation between agencies at various levels and geographical locations could then be tailored to meet particular conservation requirements.