Stream and river corridors often cross multiple governance jurisdictions, making it necessary to understand who has legal authority in the landscape when making conservation plans. Credit: Michal Klajban
Successful connectivity planning depends not only on a biological understanding of the landscape that needs conserving, but also knowledge of who has jurisdiction over that landscape. Without knowing who owns the land that falls within a corridor – whether it’s government agencies, non-governmental organizations, privately owned, etc. – the practical implementation of the corridor is limited.
Often there is a mismatch between the scale of the landscape that needs conserving, and the scale of local authority in that landscape. One prominent example of this occurs with stream and river corridors. Waterways usually cross multiple jurisdictions, whether at the local, regional, or national scale. The implementation and management of a successful corridor involves multiple governing entities, who all must agree and collaborate on everything from overall values to daily management needs.
A recent study highlights this mismatch between landscape scale and legal authority, and provides practical guidance for how to approach the problem.
First, a discussion of the challenges associated with spatially mapping legal authority and habitat condition provides a framework for how to assess the issue. There are recommendations for how to integrate legal authority and ecological maps to inform connectivity modeling. A new approach then details a method for mapping capacity to coordinate bioregional‐scale corridor conservation.
This approach is then applied to a case study in Okanogan County in the state of Washington (U.S.), where restoring streamside connectivity is a conservation goal to benefit montane species such as American black bear (Ursus americanus) and Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). However, key areas are administered by both federal and state agencies, and numerous surrounding parcels are subject to local or tribal land‐use regulations.
The mapping approach applied to the region successfully integrates governance concepts with ecological landscape analysis, providing a concrete example of how it’s possible to combine legal authority and ecological data to evaluate the potential for connectivity conservation. The results provide a more accurate representation for land managers and other stakeholders to use when determining the best path forward in corridor creation. This novel approach provides a way to incorporate the reality of multiple governing authorities with connectivity analysis to more effectively plan for corridors.
Resources
Stahl, A.T., Fremier, A.K. and Cosens, B.A. 2020. Mapping legal authority for terrestrial conservation corridors along streams. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13484.
