An Emerging Agency-Based Approach to Conserving Populations Through Strategic Habitat Conservation

This chapter describes a framework for strategic habitat conservation (SHC) that enables the efficient maintenance of wildlife populations at objective levels through protection of existing habitat, habitat restoration, and habitat manipulation. The SHC approach is planning intense; requires the integration of planning, conservation delivery, monitoring and research; and benefits from inter-agency collaboration and coordination. The technical elements of SHC are biological planning, conservation design, assumption-driven research, and mission-based monitoring. Biological planning, conservation design, and research and monitoring blend together in an iterative process. However, the process achieves its full value only when all five elements, including conservation delivery are in place. Biological planning is the systematic application of scientific knowledge about species and habitat conservation. It includes articulating measurable population objectives for selected species, considering what may be limiting populations to less than objective levels, and compiling models that describe how populations are expected to respond to specific habitat conservation actions. Conservation Design is predicated on the belief that the potential to affect populations varies in space in response to site characteristics and landscape context. The development of maps predicting patterns in the ecosystem is a significant feature of Conservation Design.