Reed finds key conservation components missing in local land-use ordinances for conservation development
Editor's Note: The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation helped fund Sarah's early work on Conservation Development with the Wildlife Conservation Society through a Leadership Grant. You can also watch a short video about Sarah's work in our Switzer Network News series. This study represents the first publication of Sarah's work on this topic in a scientific journal.
A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Colorado State University (CSU) looks at conservation development (CD) regulations in the western United States and evaluates the degree to which CD is permitted and encouraged by county planning agencies. The study finds that despite strong economic incentives and widespread implementation, several issues currently limit CD’s effectiveness for conserving biological diversity.
Reviewing land-use regulations in 414 counties in 11 western states, the authors of the study found that 32-percent of local planning jurisdictions have adopted CD ordinances, mostly during the last decade. In this type of development, homes are built on smaller lots and clustered together while the remaining portions of the property are protected for conservation purposes. Such purposes include use by endangered wildlife for feeding or nesting habitat, protection of watershed features, and maintaining connectedness with other land. CD has contributed up to 25% of the private lands protected in the U.S..
In their review, the authors found that an ecological site analysis was required in only 13-percent of the adopted ordinances .This analysis is key to identifying the features of the property that should be protected, and allows for biological diversity to be sustained and potentially restored at some point in the future. In addition, results showed that few of the ordinances provided guidance on size or location of protected open space, or required monitoring or oversight after development was completed and, in some cases, the protection was of limited duration.
“Wildlife biologists should be involved in the design, construction, and stewardship phases of development,” said Sarah Reed, the study’s lead author and an Associate Conservation Scientist with WCS and faculty affiliate in the Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Department at CSU, “Without these important components, conservation development will be conservation in name only.”
