A Survey of the Use of Natural Heritage Date in Local Land‐Use Planning

With nearly 50% of federally threatened or endangered species in the United States occurring only on private lands (McKinney et al. 1993; Natural Heritage Data Center Network 1993), biodiversity conservation strategies cannot ignore private land management. Because most private land is under the jurisdiction primarily of local government (Kusler 1980), local land-use planning represents a key point of intervention for maintaining the nation's biodiversity (National Research Council 1993). Little is known, however, about how routinely biodiversity concerns are incorporated into local land-use planning. To address this problem I surveyed Natural Heritage programs throughout the U.S. State Natural Heritage Programs were chosen for the survey because they operate in each state and usually serve as the primary repository of a state's biodiversity information (Roush 1985). The Natural Heritage network is recognized as the most comprehensive source available in the U.S. for detailed information on rare species and communities (referred to in this paper as "natural elements") (Stein 1993). Eighty-four percent of Natural Heritage Programs are within government agencies, although The Nature Conservancy, a private organization, originally established the state programs and continues to provide technical support (Stein 1993). Although other sources of biodiversity information are available they lack the standardized organization and comprehensive coverage that makes heritage information comparable across jurisdictions (National Research Council 1993). The disadvantage of querying Heritage Programs about local planning is that although they provide field biological research and data management for rare natural elements, they lack the resources to be extensively involved in local planning processes. Given their official research and information management responsibilities, however, Natural Heritage Programs are likely to have at least extensive anecdotal knowledge about the use of their data and often to have detailed records of its use.