IDENTIFYING LANDS: METHODS

WORKING TOGETHER

The group held a series of meetings for all nine counties asking local experts—land managers, county officials, and biologists—to identify valuable lands, the benefits those lands provide, and the threats they face. The process was innovative: working together, participants digitally mapped unprotected areas, using a live geographic
information system (GIS) database projected on whiteboards.

This method directly captured experts’ local knowledge and created a previously unavailable data set. Greenbelt Alliance and Bay Area Open Space Council staff compiled the data, then worked with each county to refine and add to the data to create a regional picture of important lands to conserve and their benefits.

By summer 2008, the group had identified unprotected landscapes— watersheds, working farms and ranches, community greenbelts, wildlife habitat, and recreation areas—with significant value to the Bay Area and the state. These are presented here in Golden Lands.

This regional picture is a crucial first step toward helping dozens of organizations work together to set priorities, decide which lands can be protected through policies and which should be purchased, and—ultimately—save the most land in the most effective way.

Data Sources
Data sets used in the mapping process include:

• Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program, California Department of Conservation—boundaries of important farmland and urbanized areas in all nine counties
• Bay Area Protected Areas Database—lands owned in fee or easement that are managed for open space values and off-limits to development
• Regional Trails—San Francisco Bay Trail, Bay Area Ridge Trail, California Coastal Trail
• Base Data—natural and jurisdictional features such as county and city boundaries, highways and roads, water bodies, and topography