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Goal: Preservation of Wild Lands, Habitat & Biodiversity

To conserve wild lands and natural landscapes and to value, protect, and restore biodiversity by preventing and reversing habitat fragmentation and degradation.

Wild Sky Wilderness by Mark Boyar

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What Is Happening?

Pacific Northwest wild lands and natural landscapes are home to an amazing variety of flora and fauna. By some measures, we are successfully conserving this heritage. More than half of King County remains forested and nearly half of the county's acreage is protected by local, state and federal land management agencies. But by other measures, we have cause for concern.

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Nearly all of our Puget Sound estuaries (where rivers meet the Sound) have been lost over the years and other priority habitats are showing the same downward trend. Much of this habitat loss has resulted from paving over our wild lands to build the roads and infrastructure needed to accommodate all the people wanting to live in our region. Development has also inhibited wildlife migratory pathways through habitat fragmentation. For example, healthy populations of salmon in the Puget Sound depend on the fishes’ ability to swim upstream to spawn. Human structures, topography, and changes in streamflow resulting from development act as barriers to fish migration. Decades of logging and motorized recreation have led to the growth of a huge road network cutting across forests in King, Pierce and Kittitas counties, increasing fragmentation and, in turn, decreasing functional habitat for wildlife.

Status Indicators
Acres of Protected Land and Water --- The survival of our bioregion and the species that depend on its ecosystems requires conservation of individual habitat sites as well as protection at the ecosystem scale. Protecting existing habitat and the ecological processes that create it is the most important action needed in the short-term to increase ecosystem regeneration. Protection measures include land acquisition, wilderness/park designation, regulation, and landowner stewardship. (view data graph) Habitat Fragmentation --- While direct habitat loss is the largest cause of species loss worldwide, habitat fragmentation is considered the principal threat to temperate zone species. Over the past century, clear-cut logging, road building and urbanization have significantly degraded our Central Puget Sound forests. A huge road network now cuts across these lands, home to a wide range of wildlife species. Several of the species, which require large intact core areas to survive, are on federal threatened and endangered species lists. Acres of Priority Habitat --- The Puget Sound region contains an enormous variety of habitats, each supporting diverse communities of plant and animal life. Freshwater wetlands, old-growth forests, shrub-steppe, estuarine wetlands, nearshore marine, subtidal are all examples of significant habitat types critical to a diverse array of species. Extensive development, land use conversion and the introduction of non-native and invasive species have destroyed or degraded significant areas of functioning habitat over the past 100 years.
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Why Is It Happening?

Declining ecosystem health is primarily the result of the conversion of wild lands to other uses and/or degradation of those lands as a result of human use. The Washington Biodiversity Council reports that the Puget Trough ecoregion, which includes Central Puget Sound, has seen 50 percent of its natural land base converted to other uses.

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The greatest pressure comes from urbanization and the resulting spread of impervious surfaces (e.g. roads, parking lots, and pavement). But this situation may be turning around. Development in the Central Puget Sound region is now successfully being concentrated in designated urban growth areas. Higher density development helps to combat urban sprawl and its impact on undeveloped lands with higher habitat values. Yet, density doesn’t count for everything. In order to stem sprawl, we need to focus on making our cities attractive places to live using greener development strategies. For example, promoting alternatives to shoreline armoring, particularly in deeper inter-tidal waters, would address homeowner’s needs for property protection while minimizing degradation of our near-shore marine resources. We must also prioritize the recovery and regeneration of our wild lands. While enforcement of existing land use regulations and funding for habitat restoration and protection are not carefully tracked, comprehensive regional strategies, notably the Puget Sound Partnership and The Cascade Agenda, are contributing momentum to regional conservation efforts.

Upstream Indicators
Funding for Habitat Protection and Restoration --- Habitat restoration and protection are two of the most important tools we use to conserve our wild lands and the ecological processes that maintain these wild lands. These tools require solid science, planning, political will, public support, landowner willingness, technical expertise and experience and, importantly, money. Individual projects range from hundreds of dollars to multi-million dollar efforts, while large-scale ecosystem recovery efforts such as the Puget Sound Partnership will require hundreds of millions dollars over many years to realize goals for a truly healthy and sustainable Puget Sound ecosystem. (view data graph) Planned Density --- Over the years, urban sprawl has led to rural land consumption and a reduction in green space. Studies have documented that the environmental and economic costs associated with low density development is much higher than compact neighborhoods. There is also a significant link between health and sprawl - people living in places marked by sprawl are likely to walk less and weigh more. Planned density, through such policies as Washington’s Growth Management Act, can be an effective tool to achieve efficient land usage and avoid the negatives associated with fragmented development. (view data graph) Shoreline Armoring --- The amount of shoreline armoring can be used as a general indicator of the condition of marine shorelines. When armoring is present, the health of habitats decline in the nearshore area (the water, shoreline and adjacent upland areas). These habitats are an important feeding, nesting and resting ground for many fish, animals and plants, including young salmon that feed along the shore after journeying down rivers into the Sound. Much of King County's mainland shoreline has been armored in contrast to the relatively natural shorelines along Vashon-Maury Islands. (view data graph) Urbanization and Impervious Surface Changes --- Urbanization, defined as the transition from a native landscape to a built environment, increases the impervious surface coverage of roads, parking areas, sidewalks, landscaping and rooftops. Research has shown that once watersheds have developed roughly 10 percent of their drainage area into an impervious or paved condition, there is a high potential for physical, chemical, and biological impairments to both water quality conditions and other aquatic resources, resulting in scoured and smothered fish eggs, erosion, flooding and extreme peak storm events. More impervious surfaces quickly carry pollutants into Puget Sound and “reduce, disrupt or entirely eliminate native vegetation, upper soil layers, shallow depressions, and native drainage patterns that intercept, evaporate, store, slowly convey and infiltrate storm water." (1) (view data graph) Resource Land Best Management Practices --- Responsible stewardship practices that protect our soil and water resources while allowing their appropriate use are described as best management practices. Sustainable forestry and organic farming are two examples. King County budget allocations, regulatory and policy changes also play a role in responsible land use. Implementing policy plans, such as salmon restoration plans or the flood hazard reduction plan, often identify or call for specific land acquisition and protection and outreach and education toward improving stewardship and changing environmental behavior.
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Why Is It Important?

Loss of wild lands and natural landscape patterns can lead to the loss of biodiversity and the disruption of ecological functions. Native species have evolved in response to natural disturbances within existing habitat. Rapid changes in the temporal and spatial patterns of those habitats due to human disturbance decrease the chances of wildlife survival.

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As of early 2007, there were 40 animal species and 10 plant species in Washington listed as endangered or threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). As a complement to this list, the Washington Natural Heritage Program and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife develop lists of plant and animal species considered of conservation concern for Washington State. For the Puget Sound region, these agencies list 56 plants and 101 animals of conservation concern. The care with which we use our wild lands also impacts our waters. Healthy watersheds mean healthy streams and healthy streams mean healthy bugs. The Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity, or B-IBI, evaluates the health of the various bugs that live in streams. Of 20 sub-basins sampled in King County in 2003, only one was ranked as having a “good” score. Our region’s salmon stocks have also declined precipitously as a result of human incursion into wild lands. Habitat fragmentation leads to increased erosion, sedimentation in streams, and introductions of non-native invasive plant and animal species.

Downstream Indicators
State and Federal Listed Threatened and Endangered Species --- The extinction of a species is one of the clearest and most devastating impacts of our failure to protect against habitat degradation and destruction. The loss of a species is not only permanent but has the potential for triggering losses or severe impacts to many other species. The list of threatened and endangered species provides a final warning sign about those species most at risk of extinction. Stream Health Based on Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity --- We tend to gravitate toward charismatic animals such as bears or wolves, or even slippery ones like salmon, in telling stories. But when it comes to measuring environmental impacts, it's the smaller, less visible creatures that often tell the best story. The Benthic Index of Biological Integrity, or B-IBI, is often used as a "report card" for measuring the health of the benthic bug community and for stream ecosystem as a whole. Bugs play a crucial role in the stream nutrient cycle. If bug populations are suffering it will affect the whole ecosystem. The presence or absence of pollution tolerant and intolerant bug types can also indicate the condition of the stream. As many bug life cycles are short (sometimes one season in length), their numbers are useful in detecting population fluctuations in a short period of time. (view data graph) Wild Salmon --- Wild salmon are a keystone indicator of the health of our region’s biosphere. They need clean water and a passable stream. The University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group reports that global warming's expected impact includes many negatives for Pacific Northwest salmon. Increased winter flooding and decreased summer and fall streamflows, and elevated warm season stream and estuary temperatures will degrade in-stream and estuarine salmon habitat in the Northwest. These changes will likely cause severe problems for the salmon stocks that are already stressed from already degraded freshwater and estuarine habitat. (view data graph)
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