Land Conservation Map
The Northern Appalachians: GAP Management Status 2005
Click on a state or province to see an enlargement.
Southern Quebec | Northern Quebec | New Brunswick |
Novia Scotia and PEI
New York |
Massachusetts, Connecticut, & Rhode Island | New Hampshire & Vermont |
Maine
Federal GAP status definitions
GAP 1: Permanent Protection for biodiversity. Examples: nature reserves; research natural areas; Wilderness areas, Forever Wild easements.
GAP 2: Permanent protection to maintain a primarily natural state. Examples: National Wildlife Refuges; many state parks; high use National Parks.
GAP 3 Buffer lands, protected as natural cover but typically subject to extractive uses such as logging. Examples: State or Town forest or Crown lands in Canada managed for timber; land protected from development by forest easements.
GAP 4 Not Shown. Protected lands where vegetative cover has been removed. Examples, protected farms.
How big is big enough?
In the early 1990s, two questions began to distill for us which have driven much of the foundation’s work: First, how big, at what scale and configuration, does land conservation need to be to achieve biodiversity conservation that is viable and enduring? Second, what have we collectively accomplished to date to protect wilderness? We needed facts and hard data to develop a coherent strategy to protect wild Nature.
The question of scale is huge and intricately knotty, heavy with questions and light of answers, because scientists only partially understand ecosystem dynamics. Plants, animals and other organisms each have their own habitat, range and context. How and at what scale do we protect the pollinators and soil invertebrates that provide the foundation of life on this planet but are easily overlooked? How much habitat and range must we conserve to protect (and reintroduce) predators in our region, so that they will have a functional presence on the landscape? How do we factor for global climate change?
Dr. Mark Anderson at The Nature Conservancy, working with a team of hundreds of regional scientists, conducted a thorough literature search of the species of our region, including the breeding territories of birds and animals. Based on historical records, they also analyzed the catastrophic natural disturbance events that influence eastern forests. From these investigations they developed a model and methodology to determine scale. We have supported this ongoing work and are delighted to provide you with a summary: “Determining the Size of Eastern Forest Reserves, which can be accessed on this website, with links to more detailed information. Click
How are we doing?
The second question—what has has been protected as wild to this moment in conservation history—we have attempted to answer with this GIS project. Fifteen years ago, Sweet Water Trust could find no regional conservation maps that indicated how land was managed, and whether maintaining natural habitat was a management goal. Town ball fields, protected farms and timberland, and wilderness might be all colored the same shade of green. With The Nature Conservancy in the late 1990s, we decided that the most graphic way to present the management of each parcel of protected land was by updating and mapping the management categories of the U.S. Federal Gap Analysis Program. This has been an ongoing project of both TNC and SWT, led by Dan Morse, TNC GIS Specialist, and Nancy Smith, SWT, and has now been incorporated as a permanent part of Dr. Anderson’s ongoing analysis of conservation in the Northern Appalachians.
Dr. Anderson’s ongoing work at TNC measures regional progress toward ecological goals by comparing the GAP management codes to ecological data. It is an excellent “report card” for how conservationists are doing. For example, most GAP Status 1 protection occurs in high elevations on granitic bedrock. We need to afford the same high level of protection to lower elevation habitat because that is where most natural communities and wildlife reside.
A quick scan at the map or the chart reveals that all of the Northern Appalachian states protect more land as a source for timber than as wild habitat, some of them 10 or 12 times more. Does this correspond to public sentiment? A poll of New Englanders undertaken in 2002 by Belden Russonello and Steward for the Kendall Foundation and partners indicates a strong public preference for more wilderness protection over any other category of conservation. We trust you will find many uses for this data to help achieve conservation in the place where you live and work.
