Grant Project Summary:
The Nature Conservancy
Improving Methods for Identifying Priority Sites for Marine Conservation and Management: Integrating across Environments in the Pacific Northwest
July 2004 to December 2006
Project Summary
This project combined the abilities of The Nature Conservancy and the NOAA Coastal Services Center to produce new methods for developing spatially explicit conservation plans integrating knowledge about terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems at a regional scale. The new methods built on the substantial prior work of both organizations. These methods were tested and refined using data from regions of the Northwest U.S. (i.e., Oregon, Washington, and Alaska) where planning processes were held with Conservancy leadership. The methods were exported to other Conservancy operation units and partner organizations, with wider dissemination to the marine conservation and management community via conferences and publications.
The project accomplished four fundamental objectives: 1) testing and improving GIS-based techniques for prioritizing conservation and management actions in coastal and marine ecoregions; 2) identification of high-priority sites for conservation and management action; 3) inspired and guided integrated coastal conservation and management actions in the Northwest by sharing the resulting technical and factual information with governmental and non-governmental partners; and 4) and the contribution to integrated coastal zone management and marine conservation worldwide by sharing the analytical techniques with peers in the marine science and conservation and management communities.
NOAA Coastal Services Center's Role
The Nature Conservancy and the NOAA Coastal Services Center entered a cooperative agreement to produce new methods for developing spatially explicit conservation plans integrating knowledge about terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems at a regional scale. The Center helped identify integrative conservation and management targets, linked targets across environments, and identified suitability (cost) factors for use in mathematical analyses, developed an inclusive classification scheme, and applied multiple data sources to better define areas of estuarine influence.
Grantee Overview
Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, The Nature
Conservancy is a non-profit
organization working to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities
that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters
they need to survive. Since 1951, the Conservancy has been working in partnership
with local communities, government agencies and private businesses to protect
the natural landscapes that harbor the diversity of plant and animal life on
Earth. With more than 400 offices, nearly one million members and roughly 117,170,925
acres of protected habitat worldwide, the Conservancy is helping to preserve
and protect habitats throughout the U.S., and in 27 countries, including Canada,
Mexico, Australia, and countries throughout the Asia Pacific region, the Caribbean,
and Latin America.
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