Tool Comparison Summaries
This portal website compiles land conservation information resources, mapping products, and other tools, developed by a variety of organizations, that are available to guide the decision making of Massachusetts practitioners. We have summarized these tools, organized them in different ways to help you more easily choose the one(s) best suited to your conservation needs, and provided website links for direct access.
A variety of interests that can inspire and inform land conservation, and the tools included on this website tend to have a wildlife and habitat conservation perspective, rather than being focused on other important land conservation issues such as water supply or recreation.
The resources can be filtered by:
(1) Conservation Tasks:
Some tools are more suited to supporting certain conservation purposes, such as applying for or awarding grants, land stewardship, land (open space) protection, assessing landscape connectivity and public outreach.
(2) Conservation Phases:
Motivation
Awareness and inspiration leading to a Plan and Action
→
Assessment
Analysis and data generation to inform a Plan
→
Plan
Selecting a blueprint to guide Action
→
Action
Specific implementation measures
This website is an output from a University of Massachusetts Amherst Extension project studying how these tools are used by those engaged in land protection and stewardship, with a particular focus on forest conservation with a climate adaptation lens. We hope that our work increases and improves the use of these tools through building practitioner awareness and understanding, influencing tool outreach efforts, and informing future versions of the tools - with the ultimate aim of improving the future of Massachusetts ecosystems. To learn more about our research project, please visit the Research section of this website.
To learn more about terminology used in this website, see the Glossary.
Please provide feedback that will help refine this website by emailing Scott Jackson, University of Massachusetts Extension, conservation@umass.edu