Representatives of the Western Governors' Association (WGA), the U.S. departments of the Interior (DOI) and Agriculture (USDA) recently signed an agreement to improve coordination between state and federal agencies on identification and mapping of crucial habitat and wildlife corridors. This agreement clarifies state and federal roles for implementing a 2009 Memorandum of Understanding between WGA and DOI, USDA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop state-based decision support systems across the 19 western states. Importantly, the agreement also will support implementation of policies WGA adopted to conserve fish and wildlife, while facilitating development of other resources, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

Western governors have long recognized the economic and cultural importance of their states' wildlife resources. To ensure this rich legacy is conserved, the governors created the Western Governor's Wildlife Council (Council) and charged it with formulating policy recommendations to guide future decisions on transportation, land use, climate and energy development.??? A key tool necessary to fulfill that purpose is a West-wide geographic information system to help decision makers in government and industry plan infrastructure in ways that avoid, minimize or mitigate impacts to crucial habitats and support species' ability movement across the landscape.

In 2009, WGA initiated a "Corridors and Crucial Areas" project to develop decision-support systems (DSSs) that are coordinated across jurisdictional boundaries. DOE provided funding for regional pilot projects that will test the Council's current framework for completing this task. Geospatial wildlife maps depicting crucial habitat and corridors across the West will be completed in 2013.

The demand for and value of state-based geographic information on crucial wildlife habitats and corridors increased when DOI launched Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs), the U.S. Bureau of Land Management initiated Rapid Ecological Assessments, and the USDA Forest Service began its Integrated Resource Planning process. Both state and federal agencies recognized the need to work collaboratively to compile information once and use it many times in different ways to meet the needs for a host of resource management decisions.

Through the recently signed agreement, DOI and USDA recognized the state's primary trust responsibility for most wildlife species and committed to use the state data to the maximum extent possible in federal planning and decision making. Where data are lacking, the federal agencies agreed to help the states develop information for shared use. The federal agencies also agreed to consolidate the demands of the various federal initiatives to minimize the impact on the states' capacity to engage in these processes. The states agreed to confer with the federal agencies to understand better the needs of the LCCs and other federal initiatives, and to incorporate those needs into development of the states' decision-support systems to the extent they can.

Avoiding duplication of effort and leveraging the respective strengths and responsibilities of state and federal agencies are increasingly important in the face of growing challenges to wildlife conservation and declining budgets. The collaboration called for in the agreement between the Council and federal agencies will apply these principles to identification, mapping and conservation of crucial habitat and corridors across the western states.

Learn more about WGA and Council's efforts.(cs)