Protected Areas (U.S. Only)

To evaluate the protection status of lands in the Northern Appalachian/Acadian ecoregion the The Nature Conservancy (TNC) compiled a data base of lands from existing state, provincial and federal sources and then added to it information on TNC held easements and those held by other land trust in the region. Lands were then evaluated for protection value using the GAP classification system. Information for Canada is not shown here due to data licensing constraints.

What is GAP Status?
GAP status is an indicator that looks at land ownership and identifies those tracts of lands that have permanent legal protection against conversion to development.  The three GAP status levels examined here are:

GAP 1:  Lands that are explicitly protected for biodiversity with a management plan to ensure this purpose and to allow for natural processes to occur freely. For example,  nature reserves and research natural areas.

GAP 2: Lands that are explicitly conserved for biodiversity but allow for alterations of natural processes, artificial manipulations and multiple uses. For example, wildlife refuges and some U.S. national parks.

GAP 3: Lands subject to extractive practices such as logging but governed to policy restrictions such as maintaining stream buffer areas. For example, Canadian Crown lands, state forests.  GAP 3 lands will remain in primarily natural cover and will likely to play a key supporting role in maintaining biodiversity.

Definitions of GAP status levels from Crist, P.J., B. Thompson, T. C. Edwards, C. G. Homer, S. D. Bassett. 1998. Mapping and Categorizing Land Stewardship. A Handbook for Conducting Gap Analysis.

What Do the Data Show?  

• 36% of the region, over 29 million acres, are secured against conversion but only 7% is explicitly protected for biodiversity. Amounts range from a high in New Brunswick of over 8.5 million acres to a low in PEI of 43,000 acres. New York has the highest amount of reserve land (GAP status 1 or 2) with almost 2.5 million acres, most of that in the Adirondack state park. 
•  96% of the GAP 1 & 2 are public lands, predominately managed by the states and provinces.
•  Private land accounts for 4% of the area explicitly protected for biodiversity. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) lands account for three quarters of that 204,000 acres.