RECOMENDACIONES

 Florida Counties Conservation Planning Survey 2) Principal Investigator

 Pamela L. Pannozzo, M.S., J.D., PhD. Candidate, UCF Department of Biology

3) Objectives

 The objective of this study is to document and analyze the variability of Florida county government policies that affect conservation

 Research questions: 1). Are systematic conservation planning methods being used for acquiring and managing conservation lands in Florida counties? 2). What are the causes of differences in conservation planning activities of Florida county governments, if they exist?

 Hypotheses: Conservation planning quality is high where the public is supportive of conservation efforts and values biodiversity, where local governments have sufficient resources for biodiversity conservation, where legislative mandates for biodiversity conservation are recognized, and where there is strong collaboration among jurisdictions and stakeholders.

 The conservation planning activities of each of the 67 Florida counties will be evaluated and rated via a protocol used to score a set of indicators in county documents: land acquisition and management manuals, local comprehensive plan conservation elements, and climate change plan documents. A

conservation planning score will be tabulated for each county. County conservation scores will be regressed against the four independent variables set forth in the hypothesis, (community values, resource availability, state mandates, collaboration), to determine the existence and nature of causal relationships.

4) Background

The use of human research to elicit information about planning and conservation policy-making is established in the literature. Miller et al. (2009) surveyed planning directors from local jurisdictions across the United States to determine the extent to which local planning included conservation objectives. A web-based invitation and survey were sent to 116 planners, following the tailored design methodology. The study found that biodiversity conservation was either not considered or was a minor consideration, and that provisions for the conservation of native plants and animals

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were rare in planning documents (Miller et al. 2009). Cort (1996) surveyed 53 directors of state natural heritage programs nationwide to determine the usage of biodiversity data in local land use planning. A two-page questionnaire was mailed to the director of the Natural Heritage Program in each state. That study found that, across states, biodiversity data are used only modestly by local governments, even when there are state-mandates to do so and the data are in facilitative formats such as GIS data (Cort 1996).Kartez and Casto (2008) surveyed 134 local officials and natural resources professionals across the state of Maine to determine the extent to which biological information was used in environmental planning. A survey questionnaire was mailed to local government contacts. That study found that local governments’ use of biological data in land use planning depends on 1) the wealth of the county, 2) urbanization pressures, and 3) the extent to which various stakeholders routinely use biological data (Kartez & Casto 2008).Stokes et al. (2010) interviewed 17 planning directors from municipal governments across three counties near Seattle, Washington about the extent to which biodiversity conservation activities were incorporated into land use planning in their jurisdictions.Interviews were conducted in person and participants were asked open-ended multiple choice questions.

Responses included planners’ views about the factors that facilitate and impede biodiversity conservation in local land use planning (Stokes et al. 2010). Vance- Broland and Holley (2011) surveyed natural resources professionals to determine patterns in relationships among them in a social network analysis study. The goal of the study was to determine how social networks affect conservation action. The study used paper survey questionnaires, web-based surveys, and telephone and in-person interviews to survey 111 people. The data was used in network analysis and mapping to show relationships affecting conservation actions across different ecosystems (Vance-Borland & Holley 2011). Ramirez de la Cruz (2009) used data from two previous web-based, telephone, and written surveys of Florida municipal

governments regarding land use practices and of the degree of activism of special interest groups. The aim of the study was to determine the characteristics of local governments that cause them to use smart-growth land-use regulations. That study found that the use of smart-growth regulations by local governments is related to the activism of special interest groups and how those groups interact with local political institutions (Ramirez de la Cruz 2009). Ervin (2003) summarizes the use of survey questionnaires developed by the World Wildlife Fund to assess the management effectiveness of protected areas. These written surveys are administered to

stakeholders and managers during workshops, and pose questions about contextual issues and management effectiveness, including planning, protected areas policies, and processes (Ervin 2003b).

 Several studies have evaluated aspects of local government environmental protection planning. However, no studies have examined the quality of local government land use planning for biodiversity conservation specifically. The previous studies indicate variation occurs in many aspects of environmental protection plans of local governments. Given the results from these studies, it

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is likely that there is also variation among local governments in planning for biodiversity conservation. If this is the case, and because the decisions of local governments have pivotal effects on biodiversity, it is necessary to understand the nature of these variations, determine their collective effect on long-term biodiversity persistence, and their cause. Through our survey of planning directors, we are attempting to understand the relative importance of different drivers in each county’s conservation planning: community values,

availability of resources, state mandates, and collaboration.

 The human research in this study is necessary to determine which independent variables impact local government conservation planning and the relative importance of those independent variables for different counties in Florida. This information will be used to better integrate conservation science and land use planning in the future.