NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR AIR AND STREAM IMPROVEMENT

Piloting a Habitat-Based Approach to At-risk Biodiversity Conservation on SFI-Certified Lands

Project Overview

In 2010 the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI) received $20,000 to develop and test a habitat-based approach to protecting imperiled species and communities in the Southeast, Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes regions. In each area a regional list of imperiled species was developed and a relational database was created to support a habitat-based approach to managing and protecting these species. This project is significant as documentation of relationships between at-risk species with broad habitat types will allow SFI participants to focus their conservation efforts in managing for threatened biodiversity.Optimizing forest management for biodiversity across large scale landscapes presents the challenge of understanding baseline conditions across large and often remote areas. To pave a better way forward, University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) will receive $67,320 over three years to assess biodiversity values on SFI certified lands using LiDAR. LiDAR is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light.

View NCASI’s Final Report here.

Supporting the SFI Standard

This project supports a number of indicators in the SFI 2010-2014 Standard, related to critically imperiled and imperiled species, Forests with Exceptional Conservation Value and support of training for forest professionals and outreach for forest landowners. They include Objective 8: “To broaden the practice of sustainable forestry by forest landowners through fiber sourcing programs,” and Indicator 4.1.3: “Program to locate and protect known sites associated with viable occurrences of critically imperiled and imperiled species and communities also known as Forests with Exceptional Conservation Value.”

Project Partners

Partners included NatureServe and SFI program participant Weyerhaeuser.

Project Resources

Project Overview PDF

Habitat Relationships Database Pilot
Supporting a Habitat-Based Approach to Conservation of At-Risk Biodiversity on SFI Certified Lands

About NCASI

The National Council for Air and Stream Improvement is a non-profit organization that serves the forest products industry by providing technical information and scientific research needed to achieve the industry’s environmental goals and principles.