Representation Revisited: A detailed assessment of ecosystem representation in the protected areas of the United States

Brandon Caltrider, Randy Swaty, and Myles Walimaa

Introduction

  • Why is representation important?
    • Despite annual increases in the area of protected lands, ecological diversity has remained relatively constant over the past 30 years1
  • Whats been done to assess representation?
    • Representaiton analysis using a variety of land cover an protected area data sets has been conducted1,2

Questions

  • LANDFIRE EVT 2016, TNC’s Terrestrial Ecoregions, and USGS’s Protected Areas Database 2.0

  • Using these data sets we hoped to answer these three questions

    • What is the current status of protected lands?

    • How are land use regimes distributed among the protected lands of the CONUS?

    • What are potential areas for action?

GAP 1

Land Ownership of Gap 1 lands across the United States

  • Areas managed for biodiversity where natural disturbances are allowed to proceed

GAP 2

Land Ownership of Gap 2 lands across the contiguous United States

  • Areas managed for biodiversity where natural disturbance is suppressed

GAP 3

Land Ownership of Gap 3 lands across the contiguous United States

  • Areas protected from land conversion, but subject to extractive uses such as logging and mining

Biden’s 30% Goal

  • The Biden Administration has committed to conserve 30% of of the US’s terrestrial and marine environments by 2030

Land Use Regimes of CONUS

Land Use Regimes of CONUS derived from USGS’s PADUS 2.0 (TNC modified)

  • Currently 25.5% of the CONUS are protected under GAP 123
  • Only 9.9% in the CONUS are protected under GAP 12

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Ecosystem Representation

Derived from LANDFIRE’s EVT200 layer released in 2016

  • GAP 123 lands include 48.5% of EVT types protected at >30% representation
  • If we omit GAP 3, 22.6% of EVT types protected at >30% representation

Conclusions

  • How we, and the current administration, choose to define “conserved lands” has the potential to drastically influence our collective ability to achieve conservation goals
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How should we define conservation lands in the United States?

Credits

  • Literature Cited
    • Dietz, M. S., Belote, R. T., Aplet, G. H., & Aycrigg, J. L. (2015). The world’s largest wilderness protection network after 50 years: An assessment of ecological system representation in the U.S. National Wilderness Preservation System. Biological Conservation, 184, 431–438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.02.024ietz et al., 2015)
    • Aycrigg, J. L., Davidson, A., Svancara, L. K., Gergely, K. J., McKerrow, A., & Scott, J. M. (2013). Representation of Ecological Systems within the Protected Areas Network of the Continental United States. PLoS ONE, 8(1), e54689. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054689
  • Acknowledgements
    • Randy Swaty, the CDL, and Melissa Clark and John Prince of TNC
  • Contact: Brandon (bcalt32@gmail.com) and Myles (mwalimaa@gmail.com)