Habitat Restoration and Conservation Prioritization Tool For the Endangered Species Act

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) strategic planning efforts continue to identify the need for tools to specifically identify the best locations for on-the-ground habitat actions. This project is designed to fit into the strategies devised by the FWS National Ecological Assessment Team and their evolving program. Development of a Habitat Restoration and Conservation Prioritization Tool focuses on economic and social considerations components within the context of biological considerations. Components of the Prioritization Tool include socio-ecological framework, biological, social, economic and decision making. Each component includes information on its role in the process, goals and objectives, assessment strategies, metrics, the process of making choices, and a look to the future. There are ten case studies included illustrating how these steps in the process have been successfully applied, and the consequences of others where they were not applied. An extensive literature review is included as well. The overarching premise of the project is that by facilitating components of the Prioritization Tool, the potential for evaluating the probability for species/ecosystem sustainability will be maximized thereby reflecting prioritization.