4. LAND STEWARDSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

NOTE: THE GIS COVERAGE OF LAND STEWARDSHIP AND MANAGEMENT THAT IS BEING DISTRIBUTED WITH THE CA-GAP DATABASE IS NOT THE SAME SCALE AS THE VERSION USED FOR THIS ANALYSIS. A 1:100,000 SCALE VERSION WAS USED FOR THE ACTUAL ANALYSIS DOCUMENTED IN THIS REPORT. THIS VERSION IS RESTRICTED FOR USE BY SUBSCRIBERS TO THE STATE'S TEALE DATA CENTER. TO PROVIDE AN UNRESTRICTED VERSION THAT COULD BE FREELY DISTRIBUTED TO ANYONE, WE ALSO CREATED A 1:2 MILLION SCALE COVERAGE WHICH HAS MUCH LESS DETAIL AND LESS ACCURACY IN LOCATIONS OF PARCEL BOUNDARIES. PLEASE BE AWARE OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO VERSIONS WHEN COMPARING THE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE MAP TO THE ANALYSES REPORTED HERE.

Introduction
Methods
Results
Limitations and Discussion

Introduction

To meet the analytical objectives of GAP, it is necessary to compare the mapped distribution of elements of biodiversity to a map of land stewardship and management. As will be explained in the Analysis section, the stewardship and management status of a species or community type is not a direct measure of that element's viability. However, it does provide some indication of the vulnerability of that biotic element to future habitat conversion or severe degradation the primary cause of biodiversity decline. We use the term "stewardship" in place of "ownership" in recognition that legal ownership does not necessarily equate to the entity charged with management of the resource, and that the mix of ownership and managing entities is a complex and rapidly changing condition not suitably mapped by GAP. At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between stewardship and management status in that an area in a single category of land stewardship may be subdivided into many different kinds of managed areas. For example, a national forest may contain wilderness areas, research natural areas, lands that are administratively designated for extractive and/or recreational use, and so on.

The purpose of comparing biotic distributions to a stewardship map is to provide a method by which land stewards can assess their contribution to the management of a species or plant community relative to that of other stewards. This information can reveal opportunities for cooperative management of that resource. The weakest point in our analysis of stewardship is the assessment of private lands, which are treated as a single category and not differentiated by zoning class, easements or other restrictions on land use, or land owner ( unless the information was provided voluntarily to recognize a permanent commitment to biodiversity maintenance, as with lands owned by The Nature Conservancy.

The purpose of assessing the management status of biodiversity is to help prioritize biotic elements or areas of high diversity for additional conservation management efforts. These changes in management often can be accomplished without affecting the stewardship status. There are myriad resource management goals, approaches and techniques, and management impacts on biodiversity are generally element-specific. For the purposes of statewide and regional gap analyses, these different management regimes are greatly simplified and broadly applied to all elements of biodiversity. CA-GAP currently uses a scale of 1-4 to denote relative degree of maintenance of biodiversity for each tract. A status of "1" denotes the highest, most permanent level of maintenance, and "4" represents the lowest level of biodiversity management, or unknown status. This is a highly subjective area, and we recognize a variety of limitations in our approach, although we maintain certain principles in assigning the status level. Our first principle is that land ownership is not the primary determinant in assigning status. The second principle is that while data are imperfect, and all land is subject to changes in ownership and management, we can use the intent of a land steward as evidenced by legal and institutional factors to assign status. In other words, if a land steward institutes a program backed by legal and institutional arrangements that are intended for permanent biodiversity maintenance, we use that as the guide for assigning status.

The characteristics used to determine status are as follows:

· Permanence of protection from conversion of natural land cover to unnatural (human-induced barren, exotic dominated, arrested succession).

· Relative amount of the tract managed for natural cover.

· Inclusiveness of the management, i.e., single feature or species versus all biota.

· Type of management and degree that it is mandated through legal and institutional arrangements.

The four status categories can generally be defined as follows (after Scott et al. 1993):

Status 1: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a natural state within which disturbance events (of natural type, frequency, and intensity) are allowed to proceed without interference or are mimicked through management.

Status 2: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a primarily natural state, but which may receive use or management practices that degrade the quality of existing natural communities.

Status 3: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover for the majority of the area, but subject to extractive uses of either a broad, low-intensity type or localized intense type. It also confers protection to federally listed endangered and threatened species throughout the area.

Status 4: Lack of irrevocable easement or mandate to prevent conversion of natural habitat types to anthropogenic habitat types and allow for intensive use throughout the tract, or existence of such restrictions is unknown.

Methods

The stewardship and management status map was compiled at a cartographic scale of 1:100,000 to achieve the objectives of gap analysis. The base map is the USGS topographic map series at this scale but projected into the Albers Equal Area projection to be compatible with the other data layers in the California Gap Analysis database. Based on the regional scale of gap analysis and on the available resources for compiling data, a minimum size threshold or mapping unit (MMU) was established, such that only upland preserves at least 200 ha (500 acres) were mapped as Level 1 areas. An 80-ha (200-acre) MMU was established for wetland preserves, because in southern California these rare and diminishing habitats tend to be small. We recognize that there are many reserves smaller than our 200 ha and 80 ha MMUs and that these may be critical for short-term protection of individual species, or as stepping stones in a nature reserve network. Such areas would be important to consider in more local, finer-grained conservation assessments and conservation efforts.

An existing digital map of land ownership was obtained from the Teale Data Center in Sacramento. This map was derived from the 1:100,000 scale Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Surface Management Status maps published in the 1970's. It distinguishes ownership by private, state, and federal categories. Federal and state lands are further divided by managing agency. The most recent National Forests maps had been used to update the base maps prior to digitizing. Teale Data Center registered the digitized map to the Public Land Survey System network. At UCSB, we further updated the ownership component of this map with current information (e.g., in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area where land acquisition by several agencies and private conservancy groups has been very extensive). Large county parks were also digitized from 1:100,000 scale USGS topographic map base sheets if the park appeared to be relatively undeveloped and might contribute to long-term maintenance of biodiversity. Other semi-public lands (e.g., lands owned by water districts and public utilities) were included where digital maps were readily available, but it would have been too time-consuming to compile consistent information for the entire state. It is recognized, however, that water district lands are sometimes maintained in a natural condition for watershed protection, and thus may be valuable for preserving biodiversity.

To compile the remaining managed areas, we obtained boundary maps for the areas listed in Appendix 4-1 from various agency and conservation group sources at scales approximately the same as the 1:100,000 scale ownership map. The Natural Heritage Division of the California Department of Fish and Game provided a digital map of many of The Nature Conservancy preserves and easements, Forest Service Research Natural Areas (RNA) (Keeler-Wolf 1990), and of Fish and Game Ecological Reserves and Wildlife Areas. Current land ownership of the Santa Monica Mountains NRA was supplied by the National Park Service. A digital map of ACEC's was provided by several BLM district or resource area offices. We drafted additional managed areas such as Federal wilderness areas and Audubon Society sanctuaries onto 1:100,000 scale topographic maps and digitized them. Most State Parks and National Wildlife Refuges were already part of the ownership coverage, but maps of recently acquired parks and refuges had to be located and digitized.

All lands were assigned to one of the four management status levels by a simple set of classification rules. Generally entire categories of managed areas were assigned to the same status level (e.g., all USFS wilderness areas were assigned to status level 1). Table 4-1 illustrates the general assignments. Some exceptions were made in special cases. For instance, large, mostly undeveloped Department of Defense military bases (such as Fort Hunter-Liggett and Camp Pendleton) were assigned to status 3, whereas small, developed DoD tracts were assigned to status 4 (e.g., Miramar Naval Air Station). See the Limitations and Discussion section below for a discussion of the consequences of this generic classification and the ideal for future gap analysis projects.

Table 4-1. Management status assignments to land management categories in California.

Status 1 Status 2 Status 3 Status 4

USFS Wilderness Areas, Research Natural Areas
NPS National Parks, Preserves, Monuments, Seashores, and Wilderness
BLM Wilderness Areas
State Park Wilderness Areas, Reserves
State Fish and Game Ecological Reserves
University of California Natural Reserves
Nature Conservancy preserves, Audubon sanctuaries

USFS Special Interest Areas, Experimental Forests
USFWS National Wildlife Refuges
National Recreation Areas, National Conservation Area
BLM Areas of Critical Environmental Concern
Wild and Scenic Rivers, Wilderness Study Areas
State Fish and Game Wildlife Areas
Some municipal water districts, open space districts, land trusts, conservation easements
Regional wilderness parks
USFS National Forests
BLM lands
Some large DoD military bases
Corps of Engineers
State Forests
State Recreation Areas, Historic Parks, Beaches
County and regional parks

Native American lands
Some DoD military bases
State trust lands, university campuses
Private lands

Results

The following table presents summary statistics of area representation of stewardship and management categories in the state. We begin by comparing representation of various stewardship categories in management status categories. Table 4-2 provides information on the proportional make-up of management status categories by stewardship and vice-versa, so that land stewards can see how their lands, as classified by GAP, contribute proportionately to biodiversity maintenance in California. This table indicates the area for the following 1) area of the land stewardship category in each management status and total for the state, 2) the steward’'s percent of total area in each management category and of the state area, 3) total area of each stewardship category in the state and its percent of state area, and 4) mean elevation of the lands in each status category.

Table 4-2. Area and percentage of land surface by land steward and status level in California. Percentages in each Status sum to 100%, except for Total, which refers to the State as a whole.

Status 1 Status 2 Status 3 Status 4 Total

Steward Area (km²) % Area (km²) % Area (km²) % Area (km²) % Area (km²) %

Federal 189,403 46.6

Bureau of Land Management 12,091 19.4 4,374 38.0 42,051 34.2 0 0.0 58,516 14.4

US Fish and Wildlife Service 0 0.0 1,101 9.6 0 0.0 0 0.0 1,101 0.3

National Park Service 29,429 47.2 705 6.1 0 0.0 10 <0.1 30,145 7.4

US Forest Service 18,267 29.3 954 8.3 63,775 51.8 0 0.0 82,997 20.4

Department of Defense 0 0.0 5 <0.1 12,740 10.4 3,568 1.7 16,313 4.0

Other agencies 0 0.0 4 <0.1 138 0.1 3 <0.1 145 <0.1

State 9,367 2.4

State Parks 1,850 3.0 2,235 19.4 619 0.5 0 0.0 4,705 1.2

Fish and Game 187 0.3 1,433 12.5 4 <0.1 0 0.0 1,624 0.4

State Forests 0 0.0 0 0.0 276 0.2 0 0.0 276 0.1

Other 75 0.1 52 0.5 1,103 0.9 1,531 0.7 2,762 0.7

Regional and County 2,967 0.7

Parks and preserves 0 0.0 68 0.6 888 0.7 0 0.0 957 0.2

Water districts 25 <0.1 358 3.1 1,466 1.2 0 0.0 1,849 0.5

Open space districts 0 0.0 137 1.2 0 0.0 0 0.0 137 <0.1

Other 0 0.0 0 0.0 3 <0.1 21 <0.1 24 <0.1

Private 203,085 49.9

TNC 419 0.7 3 <0.1 0 0.0 0 0.0 422 0.1

Audubon 26 <0.1 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 26 <0.1

Land trusts and other conservancies 17 <0.1 50 0.4 0 0.0 0 0.0 67 <0.1

Other 0 0.0 20 0.2 0 0.0 202,550 96.6 202,570 49.8

Native American Lands 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 2,047 1.0 2,047 0.5

Total 62,387 15.3 11,500 2.8 123,064 30.3 209,729 51.6 406,868 100.0

Mean Elevation (meters) 1,397 705 1,187 506 852

Just under 50% of the state is privately owned (Table 4-2). Stewardship of the remainder in public ownership is widely distributed among USFS (20.3%), BLM (14.3%), NPS (7.4%), military bases (4.0%), USFWS (0.3%), Indian reservations (0.5%), state parks (1.2%), California Fish & Game (0.4%), State forests (0.1%), other State lands (0.7%), local governments (0.7%), and private conservation groups (0.1%). Public land is highly concentrated in the eastern half of the state, with lesser amounts in the higher northern and southern coastal mountains. There is very little public land in the Great Valley or coastal areas. A similar table for management status by county is provided in Appendix 4-2.

Figure 4-1 shows the management status of lands in California. Three hundred seventy-one status level 1 managed areas were mapped for California, covering 62,387 km² or roughly 1/6 of the land area of the state. Status level 1 managed areas are dominated by 16 National Park units (29,431 km²), 54 USFS Wilderness Areas (17,319 km²), and 65 BLM Wilderness Areas (12,056 km²). Also mapped were 93 USFS Research Natural Areas (582 km²) and 3 wildlife sanctuaries or interest areas (363 km²), 57 California Fish & Game Ecological Reserves (200 km²), 13 state reserves (80 km²), 6 state park wilderness areas (1,767 km²), 15 University of California Natural Reserves (111 km²), 5 Audubon sanctuaries (26 km²), and 41 TNC preserves (426 km²). The distribution of status level 1 areas in the state is skewed towards the Sierra Nevada and desert regions, with some other large areas in northern California.

California Management Status Map

Figure 4-1. Map of management status of lands in California. See text for definitions of management levels.

Another 370 managed areas were classified as Status level 2. These Status 2 areas consisted primarily of 80 BLM Areas of Critical Environmental Concern and other conservation designations (3,695 km²), 32 USFWS National Wildlife Refuges (1,101 km²), 65 Wildlife Areas of California Fish & Game (1,336 km²) and another 196 km² of undesginated lands, and 76 state park units (2,231 km²). In addition, 6 BLM Wilderness Study Areas or proposed wilderness areas (633 km²), 18 USFS Special Interest Areas and other management areas (699 km²), 5 USFS Experimental Forests (97 km²), 5 Wild and Scenic Rivers (160 km²), 4 National Park units (National Recreation Areas or Seashores) (705 km²) were also mapped.

Appendix 4-1 identifies all management areas identified by CA-GAP categorized as a management status 1 or 2. These areas constitute the set of protected lands used in the representativeness analysis. Appendix 4-1 also identifies the entity charged with management implementation.

Status 1 areas are substantially larger than status 2 sites. The mean size for status 1 areas is 16,816 ha while status 2 areas average 3,091 ha. When combined they average 9,944 ha. The size-distributions are skewed heavily towards small size areas, however, with a median for status 1 of only 764 ha and for status 2 of 900 ha. Only 76 sites are greater than 10,000 ha in size. The largest are National Park units such as Death Valley at 1,343,591 ha, the new Mojave National Preserve at 540,563 ha, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks at 348,473 ha, Yosemite National Park at 301,951 ha, and Joshua Tree National Park at 297,339 ha. The John Muir and Trinity Alps Wilderness areas are greater than 200,000 ha and Golden Trout Wilderness was mapped at 121,416 ha.

Size-frequency graph of managed
areas

Figure 4-2. Frequency (bars) and cumulative area (curve) of aggregated management status 1 and 2 lands in California.

If Status 1 and 2 lands are assumed to be essentially equivalent for biodiversity conservation and if boundaries between contiguous managed areas are ignored, there are 1,019 individual tracts of land managed for biodiversity. Some of these tracts are extremely large aggregations of parks and wilderness areas as in the Death Valley region (over 15,000 km²) and in the higher elevations of the southern Sierra Nevada (over 12,000 km²). These tracts would be even larger if small separations caused by roads were ignored. Even after lumping Status 1 and 2 lands, half of the state's conservation areas are less than 200 ha. This is mainly because many managed areas are comprised of several isolated parcels. The skew towards many very small tracts can be seen in Figure 4-2, which also shows that 22 very large tracts contribute 75% of the total protected area in the state.

Elevation bias of managed
areas

Figure 4-3. Proportion of managed areas and all lands in California by elevation zones.

Despite the relatively high level of overall representation of lands in status 1 and 2 managed areas in the state, the distribution of these areas is not uniform across all habitats. Figure 4-3 illustrates the bias in representation towards higher elevations, particularly above 2,000 m, and the poor representation of habitats in the 1-500 m zone, which is dominated by private land and by urban and agricultural land uses. In general, this zone contains the biodiversity elements with the least protection and that are most vulnerable to serious loss or degradation.

This pattern of greater protection in higher elevation zones and less protection at lower elevations is generally repeated within the biophysical regions of the state. We divided elevation into four zones that correspond approximately with lifezones for vegetation: <500 meters (valley grassland and riparian forest, coastal scrub) , 501-1500 meters (chaparral and oak woodlands), 1501-2500 meters (mixed conifer), and >2500 meters (subalpine and alpine). These elevation zones were intersected with the subregions described in the Jepson Manual (Hickman 1993) which characterize the variation in climatic and physiographic features in California, and therefore with range limits of vegetation types. This combination of elevation zone with general biophysical subregions was then overlaid with the management status map to calculate the proportions in each management status level for each zone. The results are shown in Figure 4-4 and Table 4-3. The desert regions have high levels of biodiversity management at all elevation levels, but especially in the Desert Mountains subregion of the Mojave region and the highest elevation zone in the Sonoran Desert. Similarly, the higher elevations of the southern and central Sierra Nevada are very well-represented in status 1 or 2 managed areas. In some cases the proportion of biodiversity management areas approaches 100% of the elevation zone. In contrast, the lower elevation zone of the Great Central Valley, the coastal regions, the Owens Valley, the foothills of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, and the Modoc Plateau have less than 10%, and often close to zero, in status 1 or 2 areas. Two exceptions are the San Francisco Bay and Central Coast subregions, where the percentages are generally between 10-20.

Management status by elevation
zone

Figure 4-4. Map of percentage of management status 1 and 2 lands in each elevation zone of subregions of California.

Table 4-3. Percent area of each subregion-elevation zone combination by management status level in California.

Southwestern California

Subregion Elevation Zone Status 1 % Status 2 % Status 3 % Status 4 % Total Mapped Distribution (km²) Status 1+2 %

South Coast <500M 0.5 0.8 2.0 96.7 9,383 1.3

South Coast 501-1500M 0.3 3.5 6.6 89.6 1,221 3.8

Western Transverse Ranges <500M 1.1 5.5 5.9 87.5 2,866 6.6

Western Transverse Ranges 501-1500M 17.1 1.6 46.3 35.0 4,480 18.7

Western Transverse Ranges 1501-2500M 39.1 0.0 51.7 9.2 1,118 39.1

Western Transverse Ranges >2500M 67.8 0.0 32.2 0.0 7 67.8

San Bernardino Mtns. <500M 0.0 0.0 5.5 94.5 2 0.0

San Bernardino Mtns. 501-1500M 3.0 0.0 66.0 31.0 834 3.0

San Bernardino Mtns. 1501-2500M 12.2 0.1 66.6 21.2 1,211 12.3

San Bernardino Mtns. >2500M 60.6 0.0 30.3 9.1 147 60.6

San Gabriel Mtns. <500M 0.0 0.1 32.8 67.2 73 0.1

San Gabriel Mtns. 501-1500M 10.0 0.1 75.9 14.0 1,523 10.1

San Gabriel Mtns. 1501-2500M 28.6 0.0 68.6 2.8 719 28.6

San Gabriel Mtns. >2500M 58.2 0.0 41.7 0.1 32 58.2

San Jacinto Mtns. 501-1500M 13.4 6.2 44.4 36.1 240 19.5

San Jacinto Mtns. 1501-2500M 44.4 14.6 20.8 20.3 177 59.0

San Jacinto Mtns. >2500M 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 31 100.0

Peninsular Ranges <500M 1.8 1.5 20.2 76.5 3,359 3.3

Peninsular Ranges 501-1500M 8.3 3.1 33.7 54.8 5,733 11.4

Peninsular Ranges 1501-2500M 15.4 7.6 41.4 35.6 660 23.0

Central Western California

Subregion Elevation Zone Status 1 % Status 2 % Status 3 % Status 4 % Total Mapped Distribution (km²) Status 1+2 %

Central Coast <500M 2.5 8.7 10.2 78.6 6,101 11.2

Central Coast 501-1500M 20.8 11.7 22.7 44.7 78 32.5

San Francisco Bay <500M 1.7 10.6 4.0 83.7 5,751 12.3

San Francisco Bay 501-1500M 2.3 13.9 5.8 78.1 2,089 16.2

Outer South Coast Ranges <500M 1.6 0.2 13.2 85.0 8,189 1.8

Outer South Coast Ranges 501-1500M 30.7 0.9 36.0 32.5 5,968 31.5

Outer South Coast Ranges 1501-2500M 70.9 0.0 28.9 0.1 194 70.9

Inner South Coast Ranges <500M 0.5 0.1 1.2 98.1 4,441 0.6

Inner South Coast Ranges 501-1500M 0.9 2.8 10.0 86.3 4,458 3.7

Inner South Coast Ranges 1501-2500M 0.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 1 100.0

Northwestern California

Subregion Elevation Zone Status 1 % Status 2 % Status 3 % Status 4 % Total Mapped Distribution (km²) Status 1+2 %

North Coast <500M 3.1 10.7 3.3 82.9 2,869 13.8

North Coast 501-1500M 0.0 28.5 2.7 68.7 187 28.5

Klamath Ranges <500M 3.2 4.1 55.1 37.5 1,593 7.4

Klamath Ranges 501-1500M 13.3 2.4 54.9 29.4 14,473 15.7

Klamath Ranges 1501-2500M 51.7 0.2 32.8 15.3 3,634 51.9

Klamath Ranges >2500M 57.0 0.0 7.2 35.8 6 57.0

Outer North Coast Ranges <500M 1.9 2.4 3.0 92.8 10,162 4.2

Outer North Coast Ranges 501-1500M 3.1 2.4 16.3 78.2 7,101 5.5

Outer North Coast Ranges 1501-2500M 18.0 0.0 69.7 12.3 121 18.0

High North Coast Ranges <500M 0.1 2.7 34.2 63.0 496 2.7

High North Coast Ranges 501-1500M 5.1 0.3 71.0 23.6 4,878 5.4

High North Coast Ranges 1501-2500M 32.8 0.0 48.4 18.8 1,220 32.8

Inner North Coast Ranges <500M 0.3 0.7 5.9 93.1 7,106 1.0

Inner North Coast Ranges 501-1500M 0.0 1.0 34.4 64.6 2,053 1.1

Great Central Valley

Subregion Elevation Zone Status 1 % Status 2 % Status 3 % Status 4 % Total Mapped Distribution (km²) Status 1+2 %

Sacramento Valley <500M 0.5 2.9 0.9 95.7 15,659 3.4

Sacramento Valley 501-1500M 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 2 0.0

San Joaquin Valley <500M 0.2 1.4 1.1 97.4 39,643 1.6

San Joaquin Valley 501-1500M 1.8 20.3 11.9 65.9 3,149 22.1

San Joaquin Valley 1501-2500M 0.0 0.0 55.0 45.0 8 0.0

Cascade Ranges

Subregion Elevation Zone Status 1 % Status 2 % Status 3 % Status 4 % Total Mapped Distribution (km²) Status 1+2 %

Cascade Range Foothills <500M 4.0 2.4 16.1 77.5 2,959 6.4

Cascade Range Foothills 501-1500M