Statewide Conservation Focus Areas Maps

The Conservation Focus Areas are those places that combine a number of high ranking condition habitats in one area. As the habitat areas overlap -- watersheds overlap the upland habitats within them and some forests overlap the other habitats within them -- the number of high ranking condition habitats in a particular area can be shown.

Contents:

• Statewide habitat map
• Habitat types (descriptions and images of different NH habitat types)
• Highest ranked habitat condition maps
• Conservation focus area maps (this page)

There are two levels of analysis shown on the map at right. (Note: Detail maps in multiple formats are on the WAP map CD. CDs are available through the NH Wildlife Action Plan: Mapping habitats for Conservation Planning workshops - click here to find out when the next one is scheduled)

Even though only one habitat type can be displayed at a time on a map, most spots have several overlapping habitat types. Overlapping habitat types can be thought of as layers. For example, watersheds overlap the upland habitats within them and some forests overlap smaller scale habitats within them. Looking down at the habitat ranking condition map, the highest condition habitat was displayed 'on top'. If a cliff was the highest ranking habitat in a location, only the cliff would be visible, even though the watershed and forest layers were present underneath.

On the conservation focus area map, the collective habitat condition of the unique overlapping habitat areas is called 'co-occurrence'. In the first step, to analyze the co-occurrence of highest ranking habitat, we gave points to each layer of habitat (3 to those of highest condition statewide, 2 to those of highest condition regionally, and one to each of various supporting levels). The brown colors show the number of points in each spot, with darker colors indicating more points (these are covered by the purple areas, which are the result of the second analysis described below).

The goal of the next step is to find locations with the highest concentration of high condition habitats. This analysis evaluates concentrations of high co-occurrence scores within a 1 kilometer radius of every point on the map. The habitat areas that were significantly high in condition and were surrounded by other high condition habitats appear in purple. These represent the areas in the state with the highest biological diversity. That is, they have the greatest concentration of high condition habitats in one place and this can support the highest number of wildlife species. These are the areas that could act as havens for those species that are becoming more rare, and thus are Conservation Focus Areas. However, these high biodiversity areas do not capture those areas of a large region of a single habitat that might be critical for a particular species, so may not save them all.

EXAMPLE: Bear-Paw Regional Greenways
Bear-Paw Regional Greenways is a private land trust covering the towns of Candia, Deerfield, Epsom, Northwood, Nottingham, Raymond and Strafford, New Hampshire. This land trust was established for the purposes of protecting the most important natural features in the region and their ecological and social values.

Bear-Paw is planning to use the Wildlife Action Plan information in the development of its strategic conservation plan. Using the Wildlife Habitat Land Cover, Habitat Condition and Conservation Focus Area maps, Bear-Paw will identify areas that are critical to wildlife within their planning area and prioritize those areas for protection. The Conservation Focus Area maps provide a method for clearly showing the areas within the region that are important to the entire biodiversity of the state. All of these areas can then be considered as a high priority for protection and the needs of critical wildlife in the region will be incorporated into the plan. Since BearPaw also has other conservation priorities, the wildlife habitat information will then be combined with data on important water resources, agricultural and forest lands, and other natural resources to identify conservation priority areas.

The maps above show the same Bear-Paw area, with different measures -- habitat land cover (left) and conservation focus areas (right).

Once the priority areas are selected, Bear-Paw can use the Wildlife Habitat Land Cover layers to determine what habitat types are present. Using Appendix B of the Wildlife Action Plan, they can develop thorough descriptions of the species and their habitat requirements, guidelines for identifying a variety of non-degrading land uses, and conservation strategies to prioritize actions to protect these areas. Incorporating this information into the Bear-Paw planning process will help to ensure that limited budgets are efficiently spent in areas of greatest need, providing the greatest economic and ecological value to conservation efforts.