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Forest Conservation Planning

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Making Transparent Environmental Management Decisions

Part of the book series: Environmental Science and Engineering ((ENVSCIENCE))

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Abstract

This chapter reviews the application of Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) to conservation planning in a large forest landscape. A significant challenge faced by conservation planners is explicitly defining and mapping values of interest. EMDS is a powerful decision support application development tool that can be used to facilitate explicit and consistent definition of subjective conservation values, which can then be used in a variety of spatial assessments. We describe a case study for the Sierra Checkerboard Initiative where we used EMDS to assess and map three conservation values across a largely forested 4,856 km2 landscape in the northern Sierra Nevada of California: biodiversity, mature forest connectivity, and passive recreation.

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Abbreviations

GIS:

Geographic Information Systems

EMDS:

Ecosystem Management Decision Support System

HCVF:

High Conservation Value Forests

FSC:

Forest Stewardship Council

USFS:

U.S. Forest Service

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Acknowledgments

Funding for the Sierra Checkerboard Initiative was provided by grants from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the Bella Vista Foundation, and The Sierra Fund to the Trust for Public Land. Keith Reynolds provided valuable guidance with EMDS and NetWeaver software. Members of the Sierra Checkerboard Initiative Science Advisory Panel—Michael Barbour, Frank Davis, Don Erman, David Graber, Bob Heald, and Bill Zielinski provided valuable input and advice. We thank Sue Britting for her contributions to the project. Wayne Spencer provided useful comments on this manuscript. We thank the Trust for Public Land’s Sierra Checkerboard Initiative team—Dave Sutton, Elise Holland, Robin Park, Carl Somers, Trish Strickland, and Dan Martin for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tejon Ranch Conservancy, PO Box 216, Frazier Park, CA, 93225, USA

    Michael D. White

  2. Conservation Biology Institute, 136 SW Washington Avenue, Suite 202, Corvallis, OR, 97333, USA

    James R. Strittholt

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  1. Michael D. White
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  2. James R. Strittholt
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Correspondence to Michael D. White .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, Corvallis, Oregon, USA

    Keith M. Reynolds

  2. Pacific Northwest Research Station, Wenatchee, Washington, USA

    Paul F. Hessburg

  3. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Patrick S. Bourgeron

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White, M.D., Strittholt, J.R. (2014). Forest Conservation Planning. In: Reynolds, K., Hessburg, P., Bourgeron, P. (eds) Making Transparent Environmental Management Decisions. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32000-2_9

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