BwH Regional Map
Background Information:
Maine's diverse plant and wildlife population and natural resource and natural community occurrences don't recognize town boundaries. Towns share rivers and streams with neighboring communities, lakes are bisected by town lines, and species migrate between municipalities. Nearly all of Maine's Focus Areas of Statewide Ecological Significance include multiple towns. Residents of any given town depend on nearby communities for jobs, cultural amenities, and outdoor recreation. Decisions made by towns up river or up wind from our homes, or even within a shared viewshed may impose immediate impacts to our daily lives, but incremental land use decisions in neighboring communities also have the potential to significantly degrade the quality of local resources over time.
Planning for natural resources requires not only assessing the resources present within your town, but also considering the natural habitat connections that cross municipal boundaries. Maintaining communications with neighboring towns is an effective way to ensure that consistent approaches are taken to protect shared resources along town borders, and helps to lay the foundation for more formal regional partnerships. In order to help your town visualize the extent of shared resources, Beginning with Habitat (BwH) provides a Regional Map that highlights the significant natural resources in your town as well as the surrounding communities. This map can help identify your regionally shared resources and it can serve as a starting point for multi-town discussions of how to plan together for the future of these resources.
Data Components:
- Developed Area that is non-permeable to water (buildings and roads)
- Data from Map 1 Water Resources and Riparian Habitats, including lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and coastal waters, as well as wetlands greater than 10 acres in size. It also includes potential riparian buffers (250 feet along ponds greater than 10 acres in size, rivers, coastal waters, and wetlands greater than 10 acres in size and 75 feet along streams).
- Data from Map 2 High Value Plant and Animal Habitats, including rare, threatened or endangered plant and animal occurrences, rare and exemplary natural communities, Essential Wildlife Habitats, Significant Wildlife Habitats, and high value habitat for USFWS priority trust species.
- Data from Map 3 Undeveloped Habitat Blocks including undeveloped habitat blocks and development buffers.
- Focus Areas of Statewide Ecological Significance are landscape-scale areas meriting special conservation attention. These "focus areas" were built around documented locations of rare plants, animals, and natural communities; high quality common natural communities; significant wildlife habitats; and their intersections with large blocks of undeveloped habitat. Focus Areas are designed to bring attention to areas with concentrations of known rare and significant plant and animal habitats. Many focus areas cross town boundaries and will require the cooperation of adjacent towns and/or land trusts to conserve them.
