In this era of change, understanding how past conservation efforts have either succeeded or failed is of utmost importance–only after such an assessment can we move forward and propose strategic conservation plans for the future. This project aims to:
- reconstruct a history of conservation of select areas of California by analyzing historic land cover maps and comparing them with contemporary land cover
- examine when (time) and where (space) protection areas were established
- and assess how successful these protection areas were in conserving the natural resources they were created for
This is a challenging task, as the information on conservation history is scattered across multiple sources, and housed in a variety of organizations and federal, state, and local governments. However, the task is equally exciting as the data assembled through this project will provide new avenues and information to enable improved conservation efforts, particularly in the face of ongoing dramatic environmental change.