Land Stewardship

The project will produce a land stewardship map of the state that indicates individual management units of public land and for private conservation lands when voluntarily provided. Each tract will be attributed for land ownership, managing institution, and management status according to the GAP handbook methods and standards. A substantial effort will be made to identify and contact all potential conservation land owners and/or managers holding tracts at least as large as the GAP minimum resolution size. Effort will also be made to form partnerships with land stewards and institutions to produce accurate digital boundary files of each tract, if they are lacking, to obtain sufficient management information to categorize all tracts and to review and document categorization decisions. Prior to project completion, an effort will be made to archive the stewardship map with an appropriate institution that will make continuous updates to stewardship changes and make the data readily available to the public.