An Ecological Evaluation of Proposed New Conservation Areas in Idaho: Evaluating Proposed Idaho National Parks

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Four areas in the state of Idaho, U.S.A., have been proposed by various interest groups to be designated as national parks. The four areas average 220,000 ha and contain important biological, scenic, recreational, and geological resources. However, the biological resources that would be protected by these proposals have received relatively little consideration. We used the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Gap Analysis Project databases to evaluate the vegetation types contained in each proposal. The scale of analysis was an ecoregion with the proposals falling within three of six ecoregions that encompass Idaho. Databases included vegetation type, land ownership, and land protection status, which were analyzed using a geographic information system. Vegetation types were used as surrogates for information on the distribution of other biological resources (ie., biodiversity). A conservation strategy was evaluated that would preserve at least 10% of each vegetation type in an ecoregion. Only 15% of the vegetation types in the three ecoregions were protected under this criterion. The four proposals added little to this figure because 67–78% of the vegetation types found in the proposals were already protected elsewhere in each ecoregion. Between 16–30% of the land areas in the proposals provided protection for vegetation types that were previously unprotected. We increased the size of each proposal by including vegetation types in a 15 km zone around each proposal in an attempt to enhance protection. None of the proposals could be feasibly modified to reach the 10% protection goal for all of the vegetation types. However, the protection provided by each proposal could be enhanced to varying degrees with the addition of relatively few hectares to their land area. Although national parks throughout the world play an important role in the conservation of biodiversity, this attribute is often accidental, and as our analysis showed, more attention needs to be devoted to biological data in the selection and design of new parks.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: