What should we protect? 

In early 2005, staff of conservation organizations in the Lake Erie Allegheny ecoregion began discussing how to develop a regional biodiversity plan. The organizations were diverse, ranging from park districts to land trusts to other nonprofit organizations and public agencies, and they all had different missions and perspectives on how to go about protecting nature. So they started with some basic questions: 

• What does it mean to do a biodiversity plan for this region? 
• What should be the goals and conservations targets in such a plan? 
• Would it be possible to do one plan that would establish a common framework of priorities for all the different organizations, so that conservation efforts would be better coordinated, more strategic, and more effective?

Under the umbrella of the Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership for Biodiversity, participants have continued to discuss these questions and scope out how to do a biodiversity plan for the region. The inital planning work has been supported by funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to EcoCity Cleveland, which is acting as fiscal agent for the Partnership. A volunteer steering committee (see members below) is directing the process.

One point of agreement is that the plan will focus on areas of significant biodiversity and restoration potential. Recreational, cultural, or farmland values will only be considered where they overlap with protecting biodiversity.

Participants have also agreed that the regional biodiversity plan should: 

• Provide a regional vision and strategy for conservation and restoration. 
• Utilize a science-based planning methodology to identify and prioritize conservation and restoration objectives. 
• Include scientific information on ecologically important systems in the region and the number of habitat types (pre-settlement vs. now). 
• Set conservation goals for each habitat type. 
• Provide a blueprint for conservation action to be carried out by different organizations based on their individual objectives and capacities. 
• Employ a decision support tool to help pool community resources and encourage cooperation, coordination, and collaboration toward conservation of biodiversity at regional and local scales. 
• Provide a public communication tool about our natural heritage.

In late 2005, a review of comparable regional conservation plans from around the U.S. was conducted to help determine the best methodologies for developing a plan for this region. In June 2006, the plan steering committee contracted with NatureServe to hold workshops about approaches to conservation and technologies to assist conservation planning. Results from these workshops will provide a detailed framework for developing the plan, including a proposed schedule and budget. It is anticipated that this information will be used to prepare future grant proposals for development of the actual plan in 2006-2007.

Summary of the June 8-9 Biodiversity Plan workshop (PDF, 195KB)
NatureServe Vista conservation planning framework (MS Word doc)

For more information or to get involved, contact Kay Carlson at 216-631-0878.

Steering committee member organizations
Chagrin River Watershed Partners, Inc.
Cleveland Metroparks
Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan/American Heritage Rivers Initiative
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
EcoCity Cleveland
Grand River Partners, Inc.
Metro Parks Serving Summit County
The Nature Conservancy
The Trust for Public Land
Western Reserve Land Conservancy
Western Reserve Resource Conservation & Development Council

Resources for biodiversity
Rare plants of Ohio