Conservation Planning Tools; Free Resources to Facilitate Ecological Modelling and Stakeholder Engagement

Abstract

Conservation management decisions are growing progressively more challenging, requiring consideration of ecological, social, legal, and economic factors. Land managers are expected to not only consider a diverse range potential influences and impacts, they are expected to analyze increasingly complex datasets and effectively present the results to a more exacting public audience. Numerous free, online, and open-source tools are available to help with this process, however many land managers are unaware of or unfamiliar with these resources. We present examples of three such tools and demonstrate how they can be integrated to assist with conservation planning, decision-support, and data visualization. Examples include aquatic intactness modelling in the Great Basin region, alternative energy planning in the Mojave Desert region, and forest resiliency modelling in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.