Do private conservation activities match science-based conservation priorities?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Private land conservation is an essential strategy for biodiversity protection in the USA, where half of the federally listed species have at least 80% of their habitat on private lands. We investigated the alignment between private land protection conducted by the world's largest land trust (The Nature Conservancy) and the science driven identification of priority areas for conservation. This represents the first quantitative assessment of the influence of defining priority areas on the land acquisitions of a conservation non-governmental organization (NGO).

Methodology/principal findings

The lands acquired by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) were analyzed using GIS to determine to what extent they were in areas defined as priorities for conservation. The spatial ana

SUBMITTER: Fisher JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3460893 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature