Description: Landowners and land managers throughout Oregon can contribute to conserving fish and wildlife by maintaining, restoring, and improving habitats. These conservation actions benefit Strategy Species and Strategy Habitats, and are important regardless of location. However, focusing investments in prioritized areas, or Conservation Opportunity Areas (COAs), can increase the likelihood of long-term success, maximize effectiveness over larger landscapes, improve funding efficiency, and promote cooperative efforts across ownership boundaries. COAs are places where broad fish and wildlife conservation goals would best be met, and have been designated for all ecoregions within the Conservation Strategy, except the Nearshore ecoregion. COAs were delineated through a spatial modeling analysis, incorporating datasets focusing on Oregon Conservation Strategy components (Strategy Species, Strategy Habitats, and Key Conservation Issues), and expert biologist review. COAs include supporting information in an associated COA profile, including details about the area’s Conservation Strategy priorities, recommended actions consistent with local priorities, and ongoing conservation efforts. Continuing the voluntary approach to Strategy implementation, conservation actions will likely be implemented within COAs by a variety of partners (e.g., landowners, land managers, agencies, watershed councils, local land trusts, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, etc.), and will encompass all types of land ownership and management approaches.COAs were first developed for the 2006 Conservation Strategy through an analysis that incorporated spatial vegetation models, predictive models of wildlife habitat, roads and development layers, and freshwater stream datasets. The 2006 COAs were developed with the best available information at the time, but were intended to be updated as new information became available, at a minimum of every 10 years as part of the required Conservation Strategy comprehensive update. Since 2006, agencies, conservation organizations, and stakeholder groups indicated that COAs were one of the most heavily utilized components of the Strategy, helping to prioritize on-the-ground conservation actions state-wide. In response to staff and partner requests, the ODFW re-analyzed COA boundaries for the 2015 Conservation Strategy using new and updated science, data, and resources. To continue the success of the 2006 COAs, the same definition, concept, and general datasets were used in the 2015 analysis. Improvements focused on: 1) incorporating new and updated data within the modeling analysis, 2) conducting a more precise and better documented analysis, 3) working with internal and external technical experts state-wide, and 4) standardizing COA profiles to provide clearer connections between COAs and Strategy Species, Strategy Habitats, and Key Conservation Issues.More details on the COA delineation process can be found within the 2015 Oregon Conservation Stratgey [Insert Link], 2015 COA Technical Report [Insert Link], and the 2006 Oregon Conservation Strategy [Insert Link].
Copyright Text: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Conservation Strategy, Salem, OR.
Support for the 2015 COA analysis was provided by: The Nature Conservancy, Portland, OR; US Fish and WIldlife Service, Portland, OR; and the Oregon Biodfiversity Information Center, Institute of Natural Resources, Portland State University, Portland, OR.