Interagency strategy for the Pacific Northwest Natural Areas Network

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, the Pacific Northwest Interagency Natural Areas Committee has promoted the establishment and management of natural areas in Oregon and Washington—protected areas devoted to research, education, and conservation of biodiversity. This growing collection of sites is now unmatched in its diversity and representation of both common and unique natural ecosystems found throughout this region. This strategy identifies visions, goals, and actions that can help transform this regional collection of natural areas into a network that has the resiliency to meet a growing number of challenges across five emphasis areas—inventory and designation, management, research, monitoring and data management, and education and communication. These challenges include managing for natural ecological processes over the long term, responding appropriately to threats such as climate change and invasive species, protecting the ecological integrity of sites as human use increases, promoting research and educational activities that address contemporary management issues, and communicating the importance of wildlands to a public that is growing apart from the natural world. Natural areas have the potential to serve as a critical network of sites for studying and developing regional and global approaches to conservation that meet diverse human and ecological needs, including managing for climate change.