BioMap2
BioMap2 Home BioMap2 Summary Report BioMap2 PosterConserving the Biodiversity of Massachusetts in a Changing World
- November 2010
BioMap2 is designed to guide strategic biodiversity conservation in Massachusetts over the next decade by focusing land protection and stewardship on the areas that are most critical for ensuring the long-term persistence of rare and other native species and their habitats, exemplary natural communities, and a diversity of ecosystems.
BioMap2 is also designed to include the habitats and species of conservation concern identified in the State Wildlife Action Plan.
Core Habitat and Critical Natural Landscape often overlap. Together they identify 2.1 million acres that are key to conserving our state's biodiversity. Currently, 1.2 million of these acres remain unprotected.
Core Habitat totals 1.2 million acres, of which 680,000 acres remain unprotected.
Core Habitat includes:- Habitats for rare, vulnerable, or uncommon mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, invertebrate, and plant species
- Priority Natural Communities
- High quality wetland, vernal pool, aquatic, and coastal habitats
- Intact forest ecosystems
Critical Natural Landscape totals 1.8 million acres, of which 1 million acres remain unprotected.
Critical Natural Landscape includes:- The largest Landscape Blocks in each of 8 ecoregions
- Adjacent uplands that buffer wetland, aquatic, and coastal habitats
Using the Map Viewer:
The BioMap2 Viewer has been
tested in the folowing
browsers:
Google Chrome (current) | Internet Explorer 7
(upgrade recommended), 8, 9, 10 | Firefox 3.5 - current | Chromium | Safari 2.3.2 | Opera 10 - 12.12
Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 3.0 users must upgrade to use the map.Map Controls
When the map loads, the information tool is active.

Three tools can be used on the map:
the Infomation tool (1),the Zoom Box tool (2) and the Pan tool (3)

The other buttons are: Full Extent (4), Previous Extent (5) and Next Extent (6)
and lastly Zoom to a Town (7).
Layers and Background Maps
Click the checkboxes in the layers window to add or remove data and change background maps

note: layers draw on top of the background maps.
Query Results
When using the information tool


the query window shows the Core and Critical Natural Landscape ID (top) these correspond to an ID in the town overview report -in this case Ipswich- at the bottom of the results window (pdf). A description of the individual BioMap2 component layer(s) that comprise the selected core can be seen by clicking the a blue link(s) under the main result header .
Printing Tips
If the BioMap2 banner is completely transparent on your print out this is because some browsers do not print background colors and images automatically - under printing options in most browsers there is a check box that enables this feature.
A default legend is created when printing, if you wish to place your legend by hand click the
legend button (at the bottom of the Map Layers window) and drag the legend to the desired location.
Map Layers:
click the underlined heading to see the related MassGIS metadata page and/or download the data.
The Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program and The Nature Conservancy's Massachusetts Program developed BioMap2 in 2010 as a conservation plan to protect the state's biodiversity. BioMap2 is designed to guide strategic biodiversity conservation in Massachusetts over the next decade by focusing land protection and stewardship on the areas that are most critical for ensuring the long-term persistence of rare and other native species and their habitats, exemplary natural communities, and a diversity of ecosystems.The Open Space map layer is continuously updated. Open Space includes State, Federal, Town, County, Non-Profit lands as well as Private lands under conservation restriction.From 1:25,000 Topographic Quadrangles Automated by MASSGIS.Scanned from 15 minute series and 7.5 minute series. Dates range from 1967-1990.
MassGIS provides several web services for accessing spatial data about Massachusetts. Publicly available datasets include aerial photography, street maps, census data, environmental data and much much more. Most of this data is available for free download via the MassGIS Datalayers page.
About Us:
BioMap2 was jointly produced by the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and the Massachusetts Program of The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
Project principals were Henry Woolsey, (NHESP); Andrew Finton (TNC); and James DeNormandie, Conservation Planner, under contract from the Mass Audubon Ecological Extension Service. Members of the core project team also include Jessica Dyson (TNC GIS Manager), Sarah Haggerty (NHESP Information Manager), and Glenn Motzkin (Landscape Ecologist).
Partners:
The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife is responsible for the conservation and protection of Massachusetts' biodiversity through land protection, biological research and inventory, endangered species regulation, rare species recovery, habitat restoration, education, and information management.
The Nature Conservancy's mission is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. The Nature Conservancy's Massachusetts Program has focused on analyses and conservation of globally important forests, rivers, wetlands, and coastal systems.
Funding:
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts funded the project largely from capital bond funds and from the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Fund. The Department of Fish and Game also gratefully acknowledges a critical grant received from the Open Space Institute, with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Nature Conservancy is especially grateful for support from The Ackerman Conservation Fund, Toward Sustainability Foundation, and Elinor M. and Joel L. Siner.
About the Map Viewer:
Developed by Kevin Robicheau (DFG); using an open source development stack consisting of: OpenLayers, Extjs, jQuery, GeoEXT, Proj4, and GeoServer(MassGIS).