Defenders' Experts
Willamette Restoration Strategy
Willamette Basin, Oregon
Oregon's Willamette Basin covers 12,000 square miles, is home to
approximately 70 percent of the state's population, and supports three quarters
of the state's economic activity. With increasing population and development
pressures, the governor appointed a group to address water quality and habitat
issues in the basin and adopt a strategy to protect and restore the basin's
ecological health (Willamette Restoration Initiative 2001). Through a
collaborative process involving over 150 partners and participants from
businesses, government agencies, tribes, academia, watershed councils,
agriculture, forestry, and environmental organizations, the Willamette
Restoration Strategy took three years to develop and was completed in 2001.
The strategy includes plans to protect and restore fish and wildlife habitat and increase populations of declining species within the context of continuing population growth in the basin. It contains a map of priority conservation habitat sites that was produced by the Pacific Northwest Ecosystem Research Consortium through a five-year, $10 million alternative futures landscape modeling project. The map could be used to help guide land use and management decisions for the next fifty years. Even with a projected doubling of the region's population by 2050, a team of 40 scientists in the Pacific Northwest Ecological Research Consortium concluded that habitat and environmental quality could actually improve over the coming decades if appropriate decisions concerning land use and management were made and implemented (Pacific Northwest Ecosystem Research Consortium 2002).
In 2001, the Oregon legislature appropriated $500,000 for strategy implementation through mid-2003. The Willamette Basin regional stewardship council is working with local governments, state and federal agencies, and private landowners to protect and restore habitat, address endangered species issues, improve water quality and manage flood plains.
The West Eugene Wetlands Plan addresses the need for protection of significant natural lands within designated growth areas while still allowing some development.
The Beginning with Wildlife Program provides habitat maps, species descriptions, and guidance to local communities to help integrate biodiversity protection into local land-use planning and guide habitat conservation decisions.
The purpose of Arizona's Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan is to ensure the long-term protection of "the heritage and natural resources of the west in Pima County."
The goal of the Chicago Wilderness is "to protect the natural communities of the Chicago region and to restore them to long-term viability, in order to enrich the quality of life of its citizens and to contribute to the preservation of global diversity."
The Willamette Restoration Strategy addressed water quality and habitat issues in Oregon's Willamette basin and adopted a strategy to protect and restore the basin's ecological health.
The BioMap project's goal was "to promote strategic land protection by producing a map showing areas, that if protected, would provide suitable habitat over the long term for the maximum number of Massachusetts' terrestrial and wetland plant and animal species and natural communities."
The Landscape Project's goal is "to protect New Jersey's biological diversity by maintaining and enhancing rare wildlife populations within healthy functioning ecosystems."
In 1994, Defenders initiated the Oregon Biodiversity Project which produced a statewide biodiversity assessment and a conservation strategy that included 42 "Conservation Opportunity Areas" across the state.
Maryland's two important planning programs are the Green Infrastructure Assessment and the GreenPrint Program.
The Southeast Ecological Framework Project used GIS technology and landscape ecology principles to identify ecologically significant areas and connectivity in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida.
