ESRI Conservation Program Resources:

Land Trusts Page 6

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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)

TNC Conecticut, Middletown c95 . Today, the Connecticut Chapter has protected more than 26,000 acres across the state, maintains 57 local nature preserves, and currently has approximately 17,000 members. In 1993, it announced its most ambitious program to date: The Tidelands of the Connecticut River. ...One of America's great waterways, stretching 400 miles from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound, the Connecticut River is a truly unique resource. Its tidal region -- the lower river and its tributaries -- is one of the richest ecosystems in the northeast, providing habitat for hundreds of species, seven of them globally rare or endangered, and containing an extraordinarily unsullied wetland complex.

TNC Dakotas, Sioux Falls c96 . The state chapters of The Nature Conservancy of the Dakotas originated in 1961 in South Dakota and 1983 in North Dakota, with field offices established in 1994 and 1990, respectively. With over half of our prairies and woodlands lost to agricultural, commercial and urban development, the programs work hard to protect species at risk, such as the western prairie fringed orchid, tallgrass prairie and piping plovers. Our priority areas are the Black Hills, Sheyenne Delta, Missouri Coteau and Prairie Coteau. ...In all, we manage nearly 24,000 acres of premium pieces of North and South Dakota prairie, wetlands and woodlands on 14 nature preserves.

TNC Great Lakes Program, Chicago IL c97 . To protect the unique biodiversity of the Great Lakes basin, it was necessary to identify priority natural features and ecological processes of the larger landscape upon which to focus our collective activity; the most important threats to those features and processes of the larger ecoregion, and the best opportunities to build strategic, regional partnerships so that the work begun by the Conservancy could be sustained throughout the larger landscape. ...The result is The Nature Conservancy's Great Lakes Program: a collaborative effort of the seven state Conservancy chapters active in the basin, the ten Natural Heritage Data Centers around the basin in the U.S. and Canada, and the two regional offices which support the work of those entities. To coordinate the work of the partnership, and to build strategic partnerships in the region, a Great Lakes Program Office was opened in the fall of 1992. .

TNC Indiana Field Office, Indianapolis, IN e95 . (1330 W. 38th Street Indianapolis, IN 46208-4103) The Nature Conservancy of Indiana publishes a Guide to Indiana Nature Preserves and Projects, which contains location maps, descriptions and rare species occurences for each of the 144 natural areas the Indiana Chapter has protected between 1959 and 1995, for an acreage of 34,990 since 1959.

TNC Iowa, Des Moines c95 . ( 431 E. Locust, Suite 200, Des Moines, IA 50309 tel:(515) 244-5044 fax:(515) 244-8890 email:iafo@netins.net . GIS Contact, Gerald Selby ) "The Iowa Chapter of The Nature Conservancy focuses on preserving biological diversity throughout the state. There is some urgency in our mission to identify and preserve Iowa's remaining plants, animal, and natural communities since only a minuscule fraction of Iowa remains in a natural condition. ...The Chapter currently owns and/or manages 3425 acres in Iowa....One of the most dramatic products of the Chapter's new GIS system is the digitized aerial photograph. Although aerial photos have, been a stock in trade of both conservationists and farmers for a long time, these new photos have the ability to be "layered" into a composite visual data presentation that can show everything from roads and section lines to the current soil type and the original vegetation on the land. ...The Chapter has been selected to serve as the GIS coordinator for 4 the lowa River Corridor Project, a program to analyze and promote altemative uses of the highly flood-prone lands adjacent to the lowa River in central lowa....In addition to the lowa River Corridor Project, the Chapter has been using GIS to aid in the scientific analysis of forest quality being conducted in the lowa Woodlands and Forests Initiative, our joint project with Trees Forever and a number of governmental and academic institutions. GIS STATUS: "The Iowa Chapter is faced with the overwhelming task of protecting and preserving existing and threatened natural communities, systems and species in the most altered landscape in America, the agricultural heart of the Corn Belt. In two areas of Iowa, the western Loess Hills and the northeastern Paleozoic Plateau, we are engaged in the type of large and complex landscape scale projects that benefit most from the applications of Geographic Information Systems. In addition to these landscape scale projects, the Iowa Field Office also manages many smaller preserves scattered across Iowas fragmented landscape that play a critical role in preserving the full range of Iowaís natural biological diversity. Since its establishment in 1963, the Iowa Chapter has protected thousands of acres, and currently owns and/or manages 28 preserves totaling more 3,000 acres. As recipient of the advanced CTSP grant in 1995 we have been able to make significant strides in developing our GIS lab."

TNC Massachusetts Chapter, Nantucket , MA e95 .((617) 423 2545.) Acres Protected: 13,000, Membership: 25,185

TNC New Mexico,  Santa Fe c96 . New Mexico received official status as a chapter of The Nature Conservancy in 1978. Today, it has a membership base of more than 6,000. Working in partnership with other land managers, the chapter has been instrumental in protecting over 600,000 acres of New Mexico's natural habitats. ...The chapter's conservation work continues to focus on southwestern New Mexico. The Gila and Mimbres River watersheds are home to dozens of imperilled species, and the New Mexico Chapter places these areas as its highest priorities for protection within the state. ...The Flora of Nantucket: ...we now have an impressive map of the islands and their ecological communities.

TNC Ohio, Columbus c96 ...Working closely with the U.S. Department of Defense, the Ohio Chapter is bringing state-of-the-art land management practices to bear at Huffman Prairie near Dayton. We have developed a management plan for this biological treasure, and we're collaborating with the Department of Defense on its implementation. ...The Oak Openings region of northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan, harbors some of the most threatened natural communities and species in the Midwest. The unique natural qualities of this area are under tremendous pressure from a variety of sources including habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and ground water modification. ...The mission of the Oak Openings Working Group is to encourage cooperation, communication and education among the local community, public agencies and private organizations in order to create a better understanding and appreciation for the importance of conservation of the Oak Openings.

TNC-Pennsylvania Chapter, Conshohocken PA c97 . (GIS Contact: Karen Shaffran, GIS Conservation Specialist, phone (610)834-1323 x102 fax (610)834-6533 email: kshaffran@tnc.org ) . "TNC Pennsylvania: 40,000 of Pennsylvania's wildest and most beautiful acres of habitat protected; 33,000 active, dedicated, generous members who understand the urgency of saving our state's beautiful lands, plants and animals before it is too late...The Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory (PNDI), Pennsylvania's member of the international Heritage Network, forms a critical basis for our work...Over the past 12 years, a team of dedicated scientists have gathered and recorded information on sites which are home to over 5,000 species or natural communities of special concern in Pennsylvania. ...Landscape Conservation: The challenge of landscape conservation is to focus varied conservation strategies on the entire landscape -- larger areas of dynamic natural systems and human activity. GIS STATUS: "Due to the sensitivity of The Nature Conservancy's data, protocol for its distribution are still being developed by upper management. In PA, science office staff are using ArcView GIS to convert the tabular database to ArcView shape files. Ultimately, these will serve as the basis for a query-response system to disseminate information on priority site location. Under consideration is a password protected website with an interactive map showing locations of species of concern. We anticipate that protocol will be set for data distribution by 2000. At the field office, we have proactively identified land trust partners who operate in the vicinity of sites with high biodiversity significance...We are making excellent progress on the site conservation plans for our highest priority, landscape scale projects. Since the grant application was submitted, we have hired site based planners at all four sites, and anticipate that all of the plans will be completed by 2000. We are using GIS to identify landowners, delineate management zones, and create burn units at our sites where we have instituted prescribed burning....Our most successful use of GIS at the Poconos Bioreserve this year has been our hydrologic modeling of the watershed, the findings of which have persuaded the local water authority-and largest landowner in the watershed-that The Nature Conservancy's conservation goals complement their economic goals. As a result, we are negotiating a plan to manage the water authority's lands to restore the barrens. Part of this plan is the creation of a spatial model depicting the timing and location of a 12 year rotational burn program for the barrens. "

All text by the respective organizations, January 2, 1997

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