Abstract
ContextWith underrepresentation of habitats in publicly protected areas, attention has focused on the function of alternative land conservation mechanisms. Private conservation easements (CEs) have proliferated in the United States, yet assessing landscape-level function is confounded by varying extent, resolution, and temporal scale.ObjectivesWe developed and tested an assessment tool to evaluate interacting spatial, social, and environmental attributes of easements relative to the degree of human modification (HM). We hypothesized that on both private and public conservation properties HM would be lower than on non-conserved parcels, and that for fine-scale features (most CEs), the level of HM would be driven by the variables used to create the coarser scale HM measure.MethodsVariation in HM between private, public, and non-conserved was tested via pairwise parcel sampling. Composition was evaluated using multiple geographic bounds and edge characteristics. We assessed both environmental and social predictors using multinomial logistic regression.ResultsPrivately conserved lands did not differ significantly from non-conserved lands. Publicly conserved lands had lower HM than both privately conserved and non-conserved lands. Edge contrast was similar between private and matched non-conserved patches. The level of HM was not driven by distance to roads, or by elevation in this mixed-use setting.ConclusionsVariation in tests for differences, land characteristics, and HM variables confirmed the significantly lower HM of publicly protected lands, and opens the question as to naturalness of easements in some contexts. CEs in this location may be representative of the mixed rural-forested landscape instead of more natural land cover.
Highlights
In an epoch characterized by human dominance of ecosystems, landscape structure and function often result from accumulated land-use decisions including where and what to conserve
Conservation easements (CEs) in this location may be representative of the mixed rural-forested landscape instead of more natural land cover
Given the increased use of conservation easements as a tool for private conservation, their complement to public conservation and connectivity, and the general placement trends of publicly conserved areas, we explored the difference in composition and proximity tendencies of privately conserved lands relative to publicly conserved lands, and to random, private, nonconserved parcels using a remote measure of naturalness (HM)
Summary
In an epoch characterized by human dominance of ecosystems, landscape structure and function often result from accumulated land-use decisions including where and what to conserve. Large reserves owned and managed by governments are the backbone of conservation, an array of non-traditional approaches, often at more local scales, may be necessary to improve landscape matrix quality and to build functional components of a multi-scale reserve system (Baldwin and Demaynadier 2009; Zeller et al 2012). Among such efforts are community-owned and managed areas, private reserves, shifting reserves and leasebacks, covenants, multiple use zoning, and severance of development rights (Porter-Bolland et al 2012; Randolph 2012; Iftekhar et al 2014). CEs are characterized as a private land conservation mechanism supported by tax law
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