Natural Connections a Vision for Conserving the Diversity of Habitats and Wildlife in the Lake Erie Allegheny Region

Natural Connections A vision for conserving the diversity of habitats and wildlife in the Lake Erie Allegheny region By the Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership for Biodiversity 2018 Natural Connections project credits LEAP Biodiversity Vision project steering committee Nidia Arguedas, Cleveland Metroparks Renee Boronka, Cleveland Museum of Natural History Amy Brennan, The Nature Conservancy Rob Curtis, Summit Metro Parks Elizabeth Mather, Lake Metroparks Joy Mulinex, Western Reserve Land Conservancy Paul Pira, Geauga Park District Gary Popotnik, The Wilderness Center John Reinier, Cleveland Metroparks Chris Tracey, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy Project manager and writer David Beach, Cleveland Museum of Natural History Graphic designer LEAP is dedicated Wendy Donkin, Small Seeds Design GIS Mapping and analysis Nidia Arguedas, Cleveland Metroparks to the identification, August Froehlich, The Nature Conservancy Elizabeth Mather, Lake Metroparks Climate change vulnerability study and adaptation protection and restoration of strategy development assistance Louis Iverson, Anantha Prasad, Matt Peters, Steve biodiversity in our region Matthews of the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, Landscape Change Research Group Patricia Leopold, Northern Institute of Applied and to the increased Climate Science Photography David Beach public awareness of Jim Bissell Luis Cantu Laura Dempsey biodiversity through Wendy Donkin Gary Meszaros Liz Russell the support of our Judy Semroc Christian Storik Scott Shaw/The Plain Dealer member organizations. United States Fish and Wildlife Service Wikimedia Commons Project funding Chagrin River Watershed Partners, through a grant by the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Climate Adaptation Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Cleveland Museum of Natural History Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership for Biodiversity National Fish & Wildlife Foundation: Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership Fund Summit Metro Parks Geauga Park District Carol Thaler Western Reserve Land Conservancy © 2018 Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership 2 The LEAP partnership and the need for a biodiversity vision The Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership for Biodiversity (LEAP) is the consortium of conservation organizations for a 22,000-square- mile ecoregion encompassing the glaciated portion of the Allegheny Plateau and the Lake Plain from west of Cleveland almost to Buffalo. The Lake Erie Allegheny ecoregion LEAP members include park districts, nature centers, museums, nonprofit conservation organizations, watershed groups, and public natural resource agencies. Members’ staff include the region’s top wildlife and plant biologists, ecologists, naturalists, and park planners. These are people with scientific expertise and boots on the ground. They are witnesses to the changing conditions of nature. 3 And they are concerned about the future of biodiversity — here in the LEAP region and around the world. Recently, the Earth has What is biodiversity? entered the sixth mass extinction event in its 4.5-billion-year history. The losses are being caused by the immense stresses Biological diversity — or biodiversity for imposed by the human economy on the natural world — including short — is a broad concept that seeks to habitat loss, resource overexploitation, pollution, invasive describe the variety and richness of life in species, and climate disruption. More than 77 percent of land a particular place. It spans various scales on Earth now has been modified by human industry. Since 1970 of life, from species and genetic diversity alone, populations of many mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have to the diversity of types of ecosystems. declined by 60 percent on average. And it can span geographic scales, from the diversity in one’s backyard to the Locally, habitats, species richness, and genetic diversity have also biodiversity of nations or the whole Earth. been lost. There are presently more than 20 plant communities and 20 to 50 species that are globally threatened priorities in Here are typical definitions: the LEAP region. The quality and resiliency of natural areas have suffered. And the capacity of natural systems to provide vital The variability among living organisms ecosystem services (such as water purification, flood control, from all sources including terrestrial, pollination, cooling, healthy soils, recreation, and aesthetic marine and other aquatic ecosystems, beauty) has been degraded. and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity Given the mounting threats to nature, LEAP members have come within species, between species and of together to pool scientific expertise, discuss ways to preserve ecosystems. and restore the region’s ecosystems, plants, and wildlife, and — Convention on Biological Diversity create a vision to inspire people of the region to do more to protect nature in the future. This document distills the group’s Biodiversity is the variability within thinking from the past several years. It is significant in a number and among all living organisms and the of respects: ecological complexes in which they • As a statement of concern from the region’s top conservation occur. Biodiversity includes ecosystem or organizations. community diversity, species diversity, • As a broad, landscape-scale analysis about what it will take to genetic diversity and the ecological and sustain biodiversity in the future. evolutionary processes that sustain it. • As the first, detailed analysis of climate change impacts on — The Nature Conservancy’s nature in the region. Conservation Gateway 4 LEAP members believe the region needs a bigger vision for nature. In a world of many stresses, nature needs more room Key Messages to move and adapt to changing conditions. Doing this will not only help the region meet its responsibility to protect its share The LEAP biodiversity vision has the of global biodiversity but help assure a higher quality of life for following key messages: communities in the region. • We are all connected to and sustained by nature. Land use challenges in the LEAP region • Nature’s diversity of plants and wildlife is threatened by many When it comes to sustaining a rich diversity of native plants and stresses, with climate change wildlife, the LEAP region has significant assets, such as Lake Erie quickly emerging as a top threat. and an excellent system of parks and natural areas. But the region • Given the magnitude of current also has significant handicaps, such as a history of extensive land and future changes, we need disturbance: large-scale conservation strategies to help nature become Historically, our inland terrestrial landscape was more resilient — and the best way primarily deciduous and mixed forest, with the to do this is to give nature more exception of some extensive wetland systems and room to move and adapt. small amounts of slumps, dunes and outcrops. However, • By protecting biodiversity, we a century ago nearly the entire area was cleared and also protect water quality and drained for agriculture and industrialization, and other vital ecological services, larger wildlife species were eliminated. In the last fifty access to nature, scenic beauty, years, much of our farmland has been converted into and community quality. It’s a great sprawling urban complexes connected by an impressive investment and a legacy for all. transportation grid. A sparse matrix of leftover wetlands, forest fragments and various stages of fallow agriculture, partially connected by riparian corridors, are all that remains of our once unbroken natural expanses. Furthermore, these systems are very unlikely to regenerate back into what they once were, due to 1) the nature of past disturbance, 2) existing landscape conditions, 3) invasion of exotic species, 4) unbalanced native wildlife, and 5) climate change. Although we do have some relict historic habitats, novel systems often spearhead any natural recovery processes. (“Habitats of the LEAP region” by Dylan Stover and Robert Curtis, Summit Metro Parks, 2014) Because so much of the region’s land has been disturbed, every remaining patch of undisturbed natural area is precious. Some of these places are protected in parks and nature preserves, but many are not. Less than 4 percent of the region’s land is protected. Thus, there are two challenges: the small amount of undisturbed land and the small amount of protected land. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that much of the rest of the region is highly fragmented by development, roads, and other infrastructure. Figure 1 provides a visual sense of the extent of fragmentation. It shows levels of imperviousness in the LEAP region — areas with a lot of hard surfaces. If you zoom in, you can see the dense network of these surfaces throughout the region. The fine scale of fragmentation means that there 5 ± Legend Value 0-10% 10-25% 10 0 10 20 25-100% Miles Figure 1: Levels of imperviousness in the LEAP region. are few large areas where natural processes can occur free of disturbance. Many bird species, for instance, require large tracts of unbroken forest in order to breed and raise young successfully. (Imperviousness is also a critical factor affecting the health of streams. In general, once a watershed reaches about 10 percent overall imperviousness, stream quality starts to be degraded by stormwater running off the impermeable surfaces. At 25 percent imperviousness, serious degradation often occurs.) The fragmentation of the landscape is especially problematic at a time of rapid climate

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