Evaluating Partners in Flight Partnership Lands in the Mid-Atlantic Region: Converting Conservation Plans into Conservation Actions

Abstract

Within the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, lands owned or controlled by government agencies and organizations within the Partners in Flight (PIF) program are highly fragmented. These lands represent tens of thousands of habitat patches that are managed by hundreds of individuals responding to a diversity of directives. Moving this patchwork of lands forward to achieve regional conservation goals will require orchestration of management activities on a large scale. Between 2000 and 2002 we conducted an assessment of partnership lands within the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain to evaluate the status of priority habitats. This project was designed to bridge the disconnect between regional plans and local land management. We interpreted digital orthophotographs and mapped patches of priority habitats within all lands owned by the PIF collective. These properties contained 672,696 ha of land distributed among 19,018 patches. For some priority habitats, the PIF collective appears to control a significant portion of the regional total. Linking habitat and partner-specific data will allow for the development of customized action plans and highlights the role of individual partners in the recovery of species suites. In a very real sense, the application of regional habitat assessments to conservation plans serves to identify the role that individual land managers may play in achieving specific regional targets.

Parent Publication

• Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002 March 20-24; Asilomar, California, Volume 1 and 2

Citation

Watts, Bryan D.; Bradshaw, Dana S. 2005. Evaluating Partners in Flight Partnership Lands in the Mid-Atlantic Region: Converting Conservation Plans into Conservation Actions. In: Ralph, C. John; Rich, Terrell D., editors 2005. Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002 March 20-24; Asilomar, California, Volume 1 Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191. Albany, CA: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: p. 203-207