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Fish & Wildlife presents Vermont Conservation Design: a blueprint for intact, connected and diverse natural lands
Summary
Vermont Fish & Wildlife outlined the Vermont Conservation Design (BioFinder) project that maps priority forest blocks, riparian corridors and natural communities to guide conservation, connectivity and management across the state; staff said the tool supports land conservation, town planning and state land management.
Robert Zano, an ecologist with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, briefed the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee on the Vermont Conservation Design (the department’s BioFinder mapping and planning effort) and explained how it identifies lands and waters that sustain ecological function now and under climate change.
Zano said the design uses a “coarse‑filter” approach—protect representative examples of natural community types and landscape features (forest blocks, wetlands, riparian corridors, geophysical settings) rather than attempting to conserve each species individually—and that the design stacks multiple spatial layers to create a statewide blueprint for an intact, connected and diverse landscape.
At the landscape scale the design maps discrete…
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