ESRI Conservation Program Resources:

Land Trusts Page 3

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(ECP and CTSP grantees, reports, and other sites of interest for conservation geograpy, mapping and GIS. Grantees are coded by program and year of grant at the end of their name/state, i.e. e91 means ECP grant in 1991. c=cstp, cm=ctsp-mac, cs=ctsp-software)

The Montana Land Reliance, Mt c98 . (107 West Lawrence, Post Office Box 355, Helena MT 59624 USA tel:406-443-7027 fax:406-443-7061 email:mlr@desktop.org GIS Contact: Noorjahan Parwana ) "The Montana Land Reliance is the largest private, non-profit statewide land trust in Montana, and one of the most successful land trusts in the west...Since 1978, The Montana Land Reliance holds 273 conservation easements over 316,000 acres of forest, range, and agricultural land. Our concentration has been along major drainages including the Smith, Missouri, and Flathead Rivers. As of January, 1998, over 115,000 acres of our conservation easements were in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and over 3,300 acres were in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (the area surrounding Glacier National Park). Over 102,000 acres under easement represented important elk habitat. Five hundred thirty seven miles of stream frontage were protected from inappropriate development." GIS STATUS: "The philosophy of the Montana Land Reliance staff toward the computer is that the computer must work for the organization, not the organization for the computer. Bearing that in mind, we intend to create a system in ArcView with enough scope to use long into the future, but focussed narrowly on our specific conservation needs. Therefore, the system we develop in 1999 should meet our needs in 2005.....The Montana Land Reliance has oversight over more than 316,000 acres of land. Since 1978, when we accepted the first conservation easement donation, the Reliance has grown at a rate exceeding the goals set in our 5 year growth plan. We anticipate this trend to continue. As we grow, the land management aspects of the organization become more important. It is imperative that we create a consolidated data management system. In 1995, two staff member participated in a two-day ESRI Introduction to ArcView workshop (version 2.0b). At the end of that training session, we decided we did not wish to implement a GIS system in our organization. There were several reasons for this decision. Access to mapping data was not as readily available. We were unsophisticated in our knowledge of computers and undertaking to learn ArcView seemed daunting and cumbersome. The number of easements over which we had oversight was small and manageable. At that time, all our mapping was done by hand. The Reliance sought to upgrade our mapping capabilities as simply as possible with the idea that eventually we would embrace GIS. We invested in excellent digital topographic maps on a cd format. In addition we purchased reasonably priced software which met our mapping and area calculation needs. We now have the capacity to produce professional small-format maps. Currently, we use mapping in the following ways: resource documentation and exhibits for legal documents; noting locations of sensitive plant and animal species or noxious weed infestations; delineating wetlands, habitat types, or other ecological types; calculating miles of stream frontage and acres of habitat; locating easements and boundaries on maps; identifying strategic conservation areas; education, outreach, and fund-raising. Since we maintain numerous databases on several software programs, access to and analysis of data is inefficient. Our desire is to create one database to house all conservation data and tie that data, where appropriate, to a GIS spatial format. Not only will this make querying and data analysis easier, but it will permit us to respond more efficiently to other entities who request information from us, for example, county planning boards. From the standpoint of spatial data, we are well on our way. The Montana Natural Heritage Program (MNHP) updates a Montana Land Reliance property boundaries file in their ArcInfo files. These data is current on all our conservation easements through 1997. "

Napa County Land Trust, Napa CA c97 . (1040 Main Street, Suite 203, Napa, CA, tel:(707) 252-3270 FAX: (707) 252-1071 mailto:nclt@napanet.net) "We're an organization of over 1,100 members who are committed to permanently preserving the lands that sustain us: agricultural properties, wetlands, open space, woodlands, watersheds, wildlife habitats. Achievements: More than 12,000 acres in over 30 properties now are protected by the Land Trust. The largest area preserved to date is the 1,312-acre Mead Ranch on Atlas Peak, partly agricultural, largely wild and natural. The map identifies areas already preserved by landowners under Land Trust programs." Dont miss their beautiful Napa County Map . and the Palisades Trail Project map . GIS PROGRESS: " The grant from CTSP has been useful in regard to identification on two levels. Within the organization, the resulting county level maps produced provide an excellent visual "frame of reference" for both our progress in land saving as well as our work into the future. The process of pulling together the resources to construct the map forced the Land Trust to broaden our outreach to the Bureau of Land Management, State Fish and Game, and the like. Secondly, the explosion of GIS interest among local, state, federal and non-profit entities created a need for a more thorough analysis of the County and its natural resources. By virtue of having GIS capability we were leaders in this process....The use of GIS maps to "get the point across" regarding our work has been amazing. Donors, landowners and the public who have never really shown an interest in our work are now compelled to help because of the draw that the maps have produced. The usefulness of the maps at the high school level has been less profound, but is building.... It is hard to believe that we ever did our work without GIS. For a land conservation organization it is a central part of both our public relations program as well as a means of seeing our future challenges. The GIS maps have had a profound impact."

Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Nantucket , MA e95 . (118 Cliff Road, Post Office Box 13, Nantucket, Massachusetts 02554 tel: 508/228-2884 fax:508/228-5528) "For nearly thirty-five years, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, a membership supported, nonprofit conservation organization, has strived to permanently protect many important and beautiful areas of the Island for the enjoyment and education of residents, visitors, and future generations...responsible for protecting over 8,452 acres of distinctive natural areas from development...We develop guides, maps, interpretive signs and educational materials for the many visitors to our properties. " Nice map of Nantucket Conservation Foundation properties .

Natural Lands Trust, Pa cs96 . (Hildacy Farm, 1031 Palmers Mill Road, Media, Pa. 19063 tel:(610)353-5587 GIS Contact, Diane Rosencrance email:adminstr@natlands.org) "The greater Philadelphia region is made up of some of the nation's richest and most beautiful natural areas. Here you can find rare, old-growth forests, diverse wildflower meadows and dynamic wetlands....Over the past several decades we have helped conserve more than 64,000 acres of natural areas. Today the Trust owns and manages a system of 48 preserves which includes some of the most ecologically significant land in the area. " For their current GIS work, see: Smart Conservation A Methodology for Prioritizing the Philadelphia Region’s Natural Resources and Creating an Ongoing Conservation Science Forum: "...The need for a Conservation Science Methodology (Smart Conservation) hinges on two missing tools: (1) consistent conservation criteria and (2) a regional-scale landscape analysis of critical lands in the form of a map, which would incorporate such criteria using multi-layered Geographic Information System (GIS). If these tools existed, the conservation community would have a practical, defensible, and adaptable way to apply science to conservation, as well as a more effective means for monitoring and assessing ecological lands and modeling patterns of ecology, land use, land management, and economic growth. The process will consider market threats to determine levels of urgency for the protection of identified natural resources. ..."

Oregon Water Trust, Portland, OR c95 . (111 SW Naito Parkway, Suite 404 Portland, OR 97204 Phone: 503/226-9055 Fax: 503/226-3480 email:info@owt.org) "Oregon Water Trust works to acquire water rights through gift, lease, or purchase, and commit those rights to instream flows in order to conserve fisheries and aquatic habitat and to enhance regional values and the ecological health of water courses." Their approach is based on a Scientific, Market-Based, Cooperative Model . Check their MAP of Priority Basin project areas . Nice LINKS PAGE for watershed resources .

Ozark Regional Land Trust, Inc. (ORLT), Mo e98 . (427 S. Main St., Carthage, MO 64836 tel:(417) 358-4484 fax:(417) 358 4438 email:orlt@ipa.net GIS contact: Jan Hinsey ) ."Ozark Regional Land Trust was formed in 1984 as a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to maintaining the unique natural character of the Ozarks...ORLT is in the process of developing a comprehensive baseline inventory of our protected properties to be used in our periodic monitoring. The inventory and monitoring program is vital to ensuring the integrity of the property and its protection in perpetuity. We will be using USGS topographical, aerial, land survey, and soil and water survey maps as a basis for our mapping system with additional layers of human impacts, natural communities and land management plans. We are also in the process of designing a database to support this inventory and monitoring program which will be used to store the associated data for future analysis and the generation of a monitoring checklist. "

Pacific Forest Trust, Boonville, CA c95 (Ecp feature article) .(14125 Highway 128, Boonville, CA 95415 or PO Box 858, Boonville, CA 95415 . Tel:(707)895-2090 fax: (707)895-2138 email:pft@pacific.net ) " The Pacific Forest Trust (PFT) mission is to restore, enhance and preserve the private, productive forestlands of the Pacific Northwest, with a primary focus on California, Oregon and Washington. "

Peninsula Heritage Land Trust, Gig Harbor WA cs97 . (P.O. Box 1973, Gig Harbor, WA 98335 tel:(253) 853-5616 mailto:vjyoung@ibm.net ) . "The Peninsula Heritage Land Trust is a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation founded and adminstered by volunteers residing on the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsulas in the Puget Sound." See a MAP of their service area and list of their accomplishments .

Rattlesnake Gutter Trust, Ma c99 . (62 N. Leverett Rd., Leverett, MA 01054 . tel:(413) 367-0389 email:RatGutTrst@aol.com ) "The Rattlesnake Gutter Trust is a 501(c)(3) land trust focusing on protection of open space in Leverett, MA, and surrounding towns. Named after a spectacular geologic feature on the northern slope of Brushy Mountain, the Trust formed in the late 1980s to protect the deep glacial ravine from development pressures. Since that time the all-volunteer organization has been instrumental in protecting numerous other properties and landscape features. Now in our second decade of land protection, we are adding GIS capabilities to develop a long-range, proactive land conservation plan based on core areas, corridors and greenways, and connections with protected lands in surrounding communities. "

All text by the respective organizations, January 2, 1997

Compilation & web design: Charles Convis, ESRI Conservation Program, April 2, 1996