Conservation Priorities Plan for the Lewis Creek Watershed - Overview

Lewis Creek Association 2007

Purpose and Objectives:

To identify conservation priorities at a watershed scale using social and science-based factors

Create a watershed scale plan that links local and state conservation priorities

Identify methods and rationale for classification and selection

Work with region and local level conservation planners to integrate various scale plans while addressing
species, ecological diversity and natural community level concerns

Rationale

Significant high quality wildlife habitat is defined largely by the quality and quantity of natural features
and potential to support key ecological functions and biological diversity. These include maintenance of
undisturbed natural areas (core habitat), water quality and quantity, species or rare landscape elements which
are priorities for conservation, connectivity or movement corridors, rare/unique species and natural
communities, representative landforms to enable regional biotic variability, and ecological processes especially
to maintain streams with fluvial equilibrium conditions. This mutually agreed upon rationale was informed by
state and private consulting partners (Lapin, Engstrom, Behm, Austin, Royar, Sorenson, Thompson, Kline,
Fiske, Warren, Ferguson, Capen, Underwood) and guided the component selection process.

Although each species and process has unique ecological requirements, applied well-founded general
principles can help to guide general habitat protection in developing areas. Meeting the basic objectives of
cohesion and ecological variability can begin to satisfy the needs of most species.

Primary guiding principles include:

A - RPL Regional biotic variability expressed by representative, proportional landforms
B - SEO Rare, unique species, communities and landscape elements expressed by significant
element occurrences
C-C Gene interchange, connectivity and movement corridors expressed by cohesiveness at
the landscape level

Components

Conservation ecology principles, field data monitoring results, best professional judgment, and local
knowledge informed the selection of components and the delineation of each component. These combined
components show suitable lands for long-term conservation stewardship at a watershed landscape scale.
Specific species and natural community considerations, such as amphibian upland/wetland needs or clay plain
forests, are parcel based elements to be determined. This watershed scale context depicts a translation from a
state/biophysical region plans to an 80 square mile watershed scale, which can then frame and support local
planning needs.

1
 1. Significant Landform Habitat- diverse and proportionate landform representation, known element
occurrences (Lapin, Engstrom, Sorenson, Thompson, Austin, Behm)

2. Aquatic Habitat- fluvial systems, floodplains, wetlands, significant hydrology areas, aquatic
communities and known element occurrences (Fiske, Kline, Langdon, Ferguson, Warren, Behm, Underwood)

3. Contiguous Wildlife Habitat – core habitat, riparian lands, lands used by wide ranging species - bear,
bobcat, birds (Austin, Royar, Behm)

Each plan component supports shared ecological principles:

Significant Forested Landform Habitat RPL, SEO, C

Aquatic Habitat SEO, C

Contiguous Wildlife Habitat SEO, C

Methods for Classification and Selection

Methods used were qualitative and quantitative. Public and private sector conservation science and land
use planning professionals identified three resource components to facilitate the prioritization and selection of
important land areas. While all land in the contiguous habitat and water-influenced habitat components were
deemed significant ecosystems, the group agreed to select a proportionate and cohesive land area subset within
the third landform component map. The landform map classification system was prepared by Lapin-Engstrom
specifically for a Lewis Creek sized watershed landscape level analysis. Anecdotal and state knowledge were
combined to ensure land area quality and potential for conservation (factors for selection). Thus, strategic
representative landform areas were then selected in proportion to their landscape level occurrence.