Full ecoregional plan - Conservation Gateway

Priorities and Leadership AssignmentAll features in the portfolio were sorted into groups based on implementation strategy:• Partner lead• TNC lead – no immediate action• TNC lead – 5 year actionDuring separate meetings for each of the TNC operating units, each occurrence or clusterof occurrences of Heritage elements, plants, animals, and natural communities, matrixforest units, and aquatic system units was evaluated for several characteristics. A briefreview of these features follows:1. Biodiversity importance. Evaluated on a scale of 1-3:1 (High) Having a broad range of conservation targets, highnumber of individual occurrences, large scale features,or globally rare elements.2 (Medium) Moderate range of biodiversity features, multipleoccurrences, or moderate importance in terms ofglobally rare elements.3 (Low) Having only one or two target occurrences, oftenspecies or natural communities in small or large patcheswithout significant landscape context.2. Threats/urgency. Evaluated as High, Medium or Low. What are the majorthreats facing this site? Will action be needed at this site in the next few years?3. Feasibility. What is the potential for effective conservation action? Who currentlyowns the site? Is there program capacity to undertake this type of work?4. Lead in conservation action. What organization should take the lead at this site?5. High priority for action. Should action be taken in the next 5-10 years? Yes orNo.Action SitesDuring the portfolio selection process, state teams selected element occurrences forinclusion in the portfolio based on goals set by the core and expert teams. In addition toselecting element occurrences, state teams (composed of state conservation scientists,state directors, and Natural Heritage Program staff) identified which sites should beprioritized for action within the next 10 years. “10-year action sites” are sites where it isfeasible to take action to achieve measurable improvement in the conservation targets,abate threats to those targets, or increase the conservation capacity at the site.Improvements would result, at a minimum, in retaining the current quality of theconservation targets. These sites not only have a high probability of successfulconservation action, but they are often the sites where reduction in threat status is mostneeded.The remaining element occurrences not selected as “10-year action sites” werecategorized into two groups; “TNC lead sites” and “partner sites”. TNC lead sites are3/2003 PRIOR-1