This map layer depicts conservation opportunity areas that were derived for the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, and feature concentrations of priority conservation targets.
The California Departments of Fish and Game, Parks and Recreation, and Transportation (Caltrans) are collaborating to improve planning information for wildlife connectivity statewide. The results of an inquiry to identify existing information on wildlife corridors in California produced eight data sets covering three parts of California and a single statewide data set. Not all data sets represent the same data gathering and analysis criteria for designating corridors. The data set groups and their creators are: Statewide Corridors, by South Coast Wildlands - one data set Central California Coast Corridors, by Univ. of California, Davis - one data set San Joaquin Valley Corridors, by Endangered Species Recovery Program - three data sets San Joaquin Valley Corridors, by Information Center for the Environment - two data sets Southern California Corridors, by South Coast Wildlands - one data set Patrick Huber at the Information Center for the Environment, University of California, Davis, identified potential conservation opportunity areas in the San Joaquin Valley. These polygons depict conservation opportunity areas that were derived for the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley. These areas feature concentrations of priority conservation targets as identified by a range of participants in this planning process. They are meant to help focus conservation efforts towards those locations that are most critical to the future ecological well-being of the region. This information will be combined in the Partnership process with additional transportation, urban growth, agriculture, and other topics that will need to be addressed over the coming decades in this region. The first step in the process of the dataset creation was to hold a series of meetings involving a wide range of natural resource planners representing federal, state, local, and private agencies and organizations. These attendees identified 14 key conservation priorities in the San Joaquin Valley. These are: - desert scrub - blue oak woodland - sensitive ecological communities - Grasslands Ecological Area - historic lakebeds - kit fox habitat - buffers around existing conservation areas - 100-year floodplain - riparian corridors - perennial grassland - Tehachapi corridor - high concentrations of sensitive species - vernal pool complexes in Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, and Fresno Counties - Tulare Basin planning areas These priorities were converted into GIS layers and overlaid to determine those locations of denser concentrations. Boundaries were drawn by visual inspection around the "hotspots" of conservation priorities and existing public/private conservation lands.
[]
nan
nan
nan