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The Conservation Lands of Georgia (NARSAL, 2012) represents a historical snapshot of conservation lands in Georgia in 2012. It illustrates and describes public land ownership, management and conservation lands within Georgia, including voluntarily provided privately protected areas. The included lands are assigned conservation measures that qualify their intent to manage lands for the preservation of biological diversity and for other natural, recreational and cultural uses; managed for these purposes through legal or other effective means. The geodatabase includes: 1) Geographic boundaries of public land ownership and voluntarily provided private conservation lands (e.g., Nature Conservancy Preserves); 2) The combination land owner, land manager, management designation or type, parcel name, GIS Acres and source of geographic information of each mapped land unit 3) GAP Status Code conservation measure of each parcel based on USGS National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) protection level categories which provide a measurement of management intent for long-term biodiversity conservation 4) IUCN category for a protected area's inclusion into UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre's World Database for Protected Areas. IUCN protected areas are defined as, "A clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values" and are categorized following a classification scheme available through USGS GAP. The Georgia database updates include: 1) National Park Service (NPS). 2) Department of Defense (DOD) boundaries. 3) Local city and county protected areas. 4) Private conservation lands under jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers for wetland site mitigation. The Natural Resources Spatial Analysis Laboratory’s (NARSAL) mission is to provide ecological science knowledge to environmental policy. Located at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences on the campus of the University of Georgia, NARSAL serves as a resource for the natural research community. For detailed definitions and discussion on NARSAL, GAP, and GLUT projects, refer to http://narsal.uga.edu. Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the Georgia GIS Data Clearinghouse, no warranty expressed or implied is made by Georgia GIS Data Clearinghouse regarding the utility of the data on any other system, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. Please see the Georgia GIS Clearinghouse website for full metadata and other data access options. https://data.georgiaspatial.org/index.asp?body=preview&dataId=44164 |