Case Study 7 The Nature Conservancy Land Purchase

Scenario A wealthy benefactor has donated 10 million dollars to TNC to buy land in North Carolina TNC has identified 4 primary environmental conservation initiatives: Preserving & expanding habitat for an endangered woodpecker Large, contiguous tracts of late-successional hardwood forests Preserving & expanding habitat for an endangered salamander Freshwater wetlands (marshes, ponds, swamps) Preserving & expanding savanna (i.e., long leaf pine) ecosystems Improving the overall health of the state’s estuaries Polygon data features are available through a spatial real estate database containing all land parcels for sale in the state

Part 1 (5-10 minutes) List at least 3 geographic datasets that will help you IDENTIFY real estate polygons that support each conservation goal Assume that existing landcover maps are out of date

Part 2 (15-20 minutes) List at least 6 specific criteria relating to geographic datasets for each conservation goal - 1 for each of the datasets identified in Part 1 The 3 (or more) new criteria might include things like: Accessibility Development pressure Parcel size (related to connectivity/fragmentation) Future management efforts required to maintain the habitat/ecosystem Cost and/or restoration cost Remember to identify the dataset(s) required for your new criteria too Hints: Think in terms of relationships and their directions Think about both non-spatial and spatial relationships Try to phrase your criteria in terms of an equation (e.g., “good sites” = landcover > 60% agriculture AND distance to towns/cities with 10,000 or more people > 50 miles AND …)

Part 3 (5-10 minutes) Did you have any overlapping criteria? i.e., ways to identify land parcels that might fulfill multiple conservation goals What would your overall strategy be for selecting parcels to purchase?

Discussion Selection criteria List one criteria and all geographic data that are required Overall strategy

Have a nice weekend See you Monday for the mid-term review