Identifying Habitat Conservation Sweet-Spots: A Progress Report on the NOAA Habitat Blueprint Place-Based Priorities Regional Pilot

The NOAA Habitat Blueprint is a new cross-NOAA framework to improve habitat conservation for multiple management objectives.  It consists of four key approaches, one of which is to identify place-based priorities to focus NOAA resources and science and management. 

Starting in April 2012, NOAA will pilot this process in one region to help it explore how to combine the best professional judgment of regional coastal and marine resource management experts with readily available information to identify the areas in which focused habitat conservation actions, science, and policies will have the greatest likelihood of producing measurable positive results. 

One of the most exciting aspects of this pilot will be to find areas that are “habitat conservation sweet-spots” – areas where conservation actions can meet multiple conservation mandates for which NOAA is responsible.  By finding these areas of intersecting interests and coordinating actions, NOAA will be able to more strategically and efficiently invest its resources to produce healthier habitats that support marine resources and resilient coastal communities and economies.  With this information we will also be able to join forces with other Federal, state, local, and tribal partners, as well as NGO and industry stakeholders, to leverage resources to meet multiple conversation objectives.

This session will report on the progress made to date on the pilot.  It will describe the experts that have been involved in the process, the data layers that have been used and those that have proven to be the most valuable in supporting the decision process, the criteria that have been selected, the discussion and decision process that has been employed to debate different management issues and candidate priority areas, and the areas that have been selected as the highest priorities, along with the rationale for their selection. It will also highlight the key lessons learned from the pilot, the refinements that are being made to the process based on the lessons learned, and the schedule for applying the revised process to other regions around the country.