What we need to know Location, spatial relationship (regarding herpetofauna), and condition of all UDWs Define connectivity metrics for target species Define vegetative structure V. CONSERVATION TARGET VIABILITY ASSESSMENT Introduction A key pillar of the 2004 Site Conservation Plan was its Biodiversity Health Assessment. The purpose of the assessment was to understand the critical functions of the selected conservation targets, how the targets are affected by actions, and develop an understanding of the overall status for each target. The 2004 Site Conservation Plan was created using TNC’s Conservation Action Planning (CAP) process. This 2012 Plan works off of the same CAP principles and presents an updated Conservation Target Viability Assessment with revised key ecological attributes and indicators. This new assessment, like its predecessor, helps identify the steps to be taken to manage and restore the natural processes that each target depends. The current Viability Assessment will serve as a point of reference for future assessments in order to measure the amount of progress that has been made through implementing the strategies outlined in Section VIII of this plan. Viability Assessment Process The Viability Assessment involves the identification of key ecological attributes (KEAs) for each conservation target. These KEAs are aspects of a target’s biology or ecology that if present, define a healthy target and if missing or altered, would lead to the outright loss or extreme degradation of that target over time. Identification of KEAs is based on three attribute categories that can collectively determine the health of a conservation target: Size a measure of the area of the conservation target’s occurrence (for an ecosystem target) or – abundance of the target’s occurrence (for a species or population target) Condition is a measure of the biological composition, structure and biotic interactions that – characterize the space in which the target occurs Landscape Context is an assessment of the target’s environment including: a) ecological processes – and regimes that maintain the target occurrence such as flooding, fire regimes and other kinds of natural disturbance; and b) connectivity that allows species targets to access habitats and resources or allows them to respond to environmental change through dispersal or migration. The Viability Assessment also involves the identification of indicators, defined as a unit of information measured over time that documents changes in the condition of attributes. Indicators are selected to assess the status of each KEA. For each indicator a rating is developed to assess the current status
What we need to know Location, spatial relationship (regarding herpetofauna), and condition of all UDWs Define connectivity metrics for target species Define vegetative structure V. CONSERVATION TARGET VIABILITY ASSESSMENT Introduction A key pillar of the 2004 Site Conservation Plan was its Biodiversity Health Assessment. The purpose of the assessment was to understand the critical functions of the selected conservation targets, how the targets are affected by actions, and develop an understanding of the overall status for each target. The 2004 Site Conservation Plan was created using TNC’s Conservation Action Planning (CAP) process. This 2012 Plan works off of the same CAP principles and presents an updated Conservation Target Viability Assessment with revised key ecological attributes and indicators. This new assessment, like its predecessor, helps identify the steps to be taken to manage and restore the natural processes that each target depends. The current Viability Assessment will serve as a point of reference for future assessments in order to measure the amount of progress that has been made through implementing the strategies outlined in Section VIII of this plan. Viability Assessment Process The Viability Assessment involves the identification of key ecological attributes (KEAs) for each conservation target. These KEAs are aspects of a target’s biology or ecology that if present, define a healthy target and if missing or altered, would lead to the outright loss or extreme degradation of that target over time. Identification of KEAs is based on three attribute categories that can collectively determine the health of a conservation target: Size – a measure of the area of the conservation target’s occurrence (for an ecosystem target) or abundance of the target’s occurrence (for a species or population target) Condition – is a measure of the biological composition, structure and biotic interactions that characterize the space in which the target occurs Landscape Context – is an assessment of the target’s environment including: a) ecological processes and regimes that maintain the target occurrence such as flooding, fire regimes and other kinds of natural disturbance; and b) connectivity that allows species targets to access habitats and resources or allows them to respond to environmental change through dispersal or migration. The Viability Assessment also involves the identification of indicators, defined as a unit of information measured over time that documents changes in the condition of attributes. Indicators are selected to assess the status of each KEA. For each indicator a rating is developed to assess the current status
Draft_SCP_9_25.docx