State Wildlife Action Plans

In the late 1980s interest began to grow in using geographic information and other statewide datasets to begin more comprehensive wildlife conservation planning within states and across regions. Several states launched statewide biodiversity strategies in the early 1990s. Florida completed a report called Closing the Gaps in 1994. Several years later, the Oregon Biodiversity Project engaged public agencies and private organizations in the development of a biodiversity assessment and strategy. California created the Legacy Program to provide biodiversity information to resource agencies and support broad-scale conservation planning. Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, New Hampshire, Washington and Maryland, each taking a slightly different approach, convened groups of resource professionals and stakeholders to discuss statewide conservation planning. About the same time, The Nature Conservancy decided to develop ecoregional plans for the entire United States, using data from the Heritage Programs.

The momentum for statewide biodiversity planning continued to grow through 2001 when Congress established the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program to assist the states in conserving the wildlife species not covered by hunting and fishing fees and endangered species appropriations. To continue receiving these funds, Congress required the states to complete "state wildlife action plans" by October, 2005. All of the draft plans have been submitted for US Fish and Wildlife Service review. The plans address the "full array of wildlife and wildlife issues," and meet eight required elements. To view USFWS approved State Wildlife Action Plans as of fall 2005, click here or the map to the left.

Throughout the planning process, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service organized state, federal, and private partners to provide support and encouragement to the state agencies as they develop the plans. The agencies and partners hosted regional planning workshops in 2003, then developed guiding principles for for the states, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and their conservation partners to consider and apply while developing Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Plans to meet their obligations under the State Wildlife Grant and the Wildlife Conservation Strategies under the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration programs. Click here to download guiding principles from this website, or click here to view document on the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agency website.

The practical effect of the federal planning requirement was to shift attention from the ad hoc statewide biodiversity planning initiatives, or in some cases to combine them.

This section of the web site contains status reports on each of the state wildlife action plans. In addition to a short status report from each state fish and wildlife agency, Defenders will provide additional information on each state plan’s contents. To learn more about a state's comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy and other relevant biodiversity planning efforts , click on a desired state from the U.S. map or pull-down menu and click on "Biodiversity Planning" in the right hand column to find out about other relevant biodiversity planning efforts.

Updated 3-16-06