1.3 From 2005 to 2015—Revision of North Carolina’s Wildlife Action Plan
across the state were involved in developing and expanding text, identifying support- ing materials (i.e., maps, fgures, tables, reports), and assimilating existing conservation planning resources. It is with great appreciation that we acknowledge their contributions. A copy of the USFWS letter acknowledging NCWRC’s intent to comprehensively review and revised the WAP as well as a list of individuals and organizations involved in the revision process, key meeting dates, and important coordination eforts are provided in Appendix C. A State Wildlife Action Plan Best Practices Working Group was created by the AFWA TWW Committee and tasked with identifying best practices that state fsh and wildlife agencies could use when revising and implementing their plans. Te guidance was published in the Best Practices for State Wildlife Action Plans (Best Practice Guide) and distributed to the states in late 2012. Te best practices are intended to improve plan consistency among the states and territories, increase plan standardization, and enhance plan efectiveness with respect to prioritization, conservation delivery, and collaboration with partners and other states. To the extent possible, NCWRC has incorporated many of these best practices, including developing ranking procedures to characterize risk and assess the conservation status and need of the state’s wildlife species; utilizing spatial analysis tools to identify and map areas that ofer the best opportunities for conservation of species and habitats, and providing GIS data that support these recommendations; and adopting standard language and classifca- tion hierarchies in describing threats and discussing conservation actions (AFWA 2012) . 1.3.3 Report Organization and Format Te North Carolina WAP not only fulflls the requirements set forth by Congress, it also serves as a practical and essential resource for future fsh and wildlife conservation plan- ning in North Carolina. You will fnd many changes in this revised WAP, as the entire document was comprehensively reviewed and it has been updated in its entirety. It has also been formatted to improve readability and our ability to revise any section as needed. Te new format will allow readers to access the document across multiple electronic formats. Since this revision contains new content and is structured in a new format, a road map out- lining how the document is organized is provided below. • Chapter 1 provides background information on the SWG program, explains why we have a Wildlife Action Plan, outlines the revision process used to update the Plan, and describes the required information that is included in the document. • Chapter 2 provides a problem-and-need overview and highlights changes to wild- life and natural community resources, summarizes steps taken toward addressing
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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