California supports one of the greatest displays of
biodiversity in the nation and the world. The challenge posed by the 30x30
initiative, is to plan and implement conservation strategies which allow all
Californians to continue to flourish and succeed, while also ensuring that we
safeguard the great abundance of species which reside in this state, and in
many cases, exist nowhere else on Earth.
Maximizing the benefits of 30x30 for everyone requires,
among many other factors, deliberate consideration of the landscape and the
ways in which biodiversity is distributed within it. This Explorer introduces
several types of biodiversity data for stakeholders to consider when engaged in
conservation planning.
The Biodiversity Explorer includes dashboards for the Areas of Conservation
Emphasis (ACE) and Habitat and Land Cover datasets. These allow deeper
explorations of the state’s exceptional biodiversity and the current state of conservation
by land cover.
The Areas of Conservation Emphasis (ACE) dashboard presents
summaries of species data collected and analyzed by the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) as part of its ongoing ACE project. ACE rolls
multiple types of Species Richness into a Biodiversity Index, and also
considers Connectivity, Climate Resilience, and Significant Habitats, all
important factors to species and ecological health.
The Habitat and Land Cover dashboard presents maps and summaries of land cover
according to categories defined by the California Wildlife Habitat Relationship
System (CWHR) maintained by CDFW. Conserving connected networks of all land
cover types is key to conserving the species which depend upon them. The
Habitat and Land Cover dashboard shows the percentage that each land cover type
comprises within a county or ecoregion, and the degree to which it falls within
already conserved areas.