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Northwest Indiana Land Conservation Survey

With the support of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Save the Dunes is conducting an assessment of land conservation in Northwest Indiana to identify key strategies, opportunities, and limiting factors for land conservation in the region. Your organization is invited to participate in this assessment.

Since the founding of the Indiana Dunes State Park and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Northwest Indiana has been a national leader in conservation of natural lands in what is a largely urban landscape. Regional land conservation efforts have expanded since those early accomplishments. Today, in addition to local, state, and national agencies, a broad range of organizations conserve land in Northwest Indiana.

The expanding number of conservation-oriented organizations in the region ensures that a wider range of lands than ever before are now being actively conserved. This increase in the amount of land under conservation presents new opportunities for collaborative work amongst various stakeholders. This survey aims to help identify and prioritize these opportunities.

Results of this survey will be compiled to a final report, and an electronic copy will be presented to each of the participating organizations. The report will include an evaluation of the current state of conservation within Northwest Indiana as well as an examination of opportunities and gaps suggested by existing efforts and attitudes. Our hope is that the report will make it easier for organizations to work together to preserve, protect, and restore the natural ecosystem of Northwest Indiana and provide a better quality of life to the people of our region.

Land conservation in Northwest Indiana faces unique opportunities and challenges, especially in light of the highly industrialized nature of the region. Thank you for taking the time to contribute to stronger conservation in our region.

For the purposes of this survey, land conservation is defined as: supervision of rivers, forests, open spaces, agricultural or recreational lands and other types of undeveloped land in order to preserve and protect them in perpetuity through prudent management.
 
 
 
Name of organization:

 
 
 
 
8.Strategies
 
Which of the following factors does your organization use in prioritizing conservation activities?
 
Opinion of local experts or others with knowledge of the site
 
Local Decision Maker analysis or information from similar GIS website
 
Presence of endangered or threatened plant species
 
Presence of endangered or threatened animal species
 
Floristic Quality Assessment
 
Total size of parcel
 
Location of parcel
 
Ecosystem type
 
Specific, written project selection criteria established by your organization
 
Landscape-scale analysis
 
Other:
 
Does your organization focus on protecting a specific land type? If so, please state whether each of the following high priority, medium priority, low priority, or not a priority:
 
Aquatic Corridors
 
Water pollution hazards
 
Cultural and historical areas
 
Dune and swale
 
Wetland
 
Forest
 
Savanna
 
Prairie
 
Urban parks
 
If your organization focuses on other land types, please specify:
 
Does your organization undertake restoration, management or stewardship activities? If so, how often has your organization undertaken each of the following? (Scale 1-5, 1=never, 2=occasionally, 3=regularly on a few of our properties, 4= regularly on most of our properties, 5=very often on almost all of our properties)
 
Invasive plant species removal
 
Invasive plant species removal
 
Prescribed burning
 
Animal removal or culling
 
Cutting or mowing
 
Native plant species planting
 
Native animal species introduction
 
Earth moving/landscape restructuring
 
Hydrologic engineering, stream bank stabilization, stream naturalization, or creation of wetlands
 
Regular monitoring of land status
 
If your organization undertakes other management strategies, please specify:
 
Does the organization encourage the public to use the outdoors or become involved in protecting natural lands? If so, which of the following strategies does your organization use? (Select all that apply)
 
Volunteer work days
 
Workshops
 
Providing information for landowners on conservation topics such as cost-share programs or habitat restoration
 
Informational signage on ecological restoration or natural resource conservation
 
Mailings
 
Newspaper articles or op-eds
 
Other:
 
Does your organization undertake advocacy work for conservation? If so, how often does your organization undertake each of the following? (Scale 1-6, 1=never, 2=almost never, 3= Sometimes, 4=Fairly Often, 5=Very Often, 6=Always)
 
Requesting specific actions from local government decision-makers to improve conservation
 
Requesting specific actions from state government decision-makers to improve conservation
 
Requesting specific actions from federal government decision-makers to improve conservation
 
Media campaigns in support of pro-conservation policies, plans, and actions
 
Protests, rallies, demonstrations or other direct action to influence policies or activities which would impact conservation
 
Providing comments and input on public issues related to conservation
 
Legal action to support conservation
 
Other:
 
 
 
9.Perceived Needs
 
On a scale from 1-5 with five being best and one being worst, how effectively to you believe land and natural resource conservation is implemented in Northwest Indiana generally?
 
What actions, institutions, resources, laws, or other factors are needed to make regional implementation of conservation more effective?
 
On a scale from 1-5 with five being best and one being worst, how effective do you believe your organization’s efforts are in achieving land and natural resource conservation?
 
What actions, institutions, resources, laws, or other factors are needed to make your organization’s implementation of conservation more effective?
 
What changes does your organization plan to implement in the coming 5 years?
 
How strongly does each of the hurdles below impact the ability of your organization to achieve its goals?
 
Lack of funding
 
Lack of organizational capacity and skills
 
Lack of buy in from local government
 
Lack of buy in from state government
 
Too few or ineffective partnerships
 
Lack of public awareness
 
Uncooperative neighbors
 
Are there other significant hurdles faced by your organization?
 
For the following existing laws, services and institutions, please state whether each is helpful or harmful to the ability of your organization to achieve its goals?
 
Zoning laws and local ordinances
 
County GIS website
 
Land valuation and taxation
 
State Dedicated Nature Preserves program
 
State grant programs
 
Federal grant programs
 
Private foundation grant programs
 
Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission
 
Indiana Department of Natural Resources Lake Michigan Coastal Program
 
Indiana Department of Environmental Management
 
State laws
 
Federal regulations
 
If you care to, please comment on any of your answers above, especially if you said that a particular law, service or institution makes it more difficult to achieve your goals:
 
Please list any laws, services or institutions which do not currently exist which, if created, would help your organization achieve its goals:
 
 
 
10.Unaddressed areas for conservation
 
Are there ecosystem types, areas, strategies, or focuses currently not being addressed in the field of conservation in Northwest Indiana? If so, what areas should be addressed?
 
 
 
11.Opportunities for collaboration
 
Which types of organizations does your organization partner with to achieve conservation goals?
 
Government agencies
 
Nonprofit organizations
 
Businesses
 
Consultants
 
Volunteers
 
Other:
 
How helpful do you believe that better collaboration amongst conservation organizations in Northwest Indiana would be in helping your organization to achieve its goals? In helping to achieve improved land conservation in the region generally? How helpful would each of the following be?
 
Pooling of resources for larger conservation programs
 
Information sharing
 
Joint lobbying for pro-conservation policies
 
Joint campaigns for public awareness of conservation
 
Trainings
 
Workshops
 
Other:
 
 
 
12.Mapping
 
Does your organization have maps of the land it conserves? (Y/N) If so, would your organization be willing to make available those maps to be compiled in a final map of land conservation for this survey? (Y/N)
 
If so, in what format can you provide the maps?
 
Who should be contacted to obtain this data?
 
 
 
15.Please provide any other comments or feedback on this survey here:
 
Thank you for your input. A copy of the final report for this survey will be provided to you by December 2012. If you have any questions about this survey, please contact Nathan Pavlovic at HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]" [email protected].
 
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