Inconsistencies and Problems

The land acquistion data recieved from the DEM are a conglomerate of state land, some private conservation land and local land trusts. In addition, protected lands in Rhode Island are held by a variety of groups with incompatible data. All of these records are not organized under one data set. Moreover, the many partnerships between the state, private conservation organizations, and local land trusts make it very difficult to determine which lands are counted by the DEM and which are not. Therefore, the total protected habitat for the entire state may not be completely accurate due to double-counting overlapping numbers. It would've been helpful to this project and future projects if the State would also keep track of all private land holdings by such organizations as the Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society and local land trusts. This would greatly reduce the amount of double-counting of protected areas reflected in this project.

Some Missing Data

• rate of change in wilderness areas
• song bird diversity or population total
• land trust acreage
• percentage of open land lost to development
• status of invasive species in the state

*The list above reflect data that were unavailable or not in the scope of this project

There were quite a few problems inherent in this project. Although it is acknowledged that counting protected areas is a very crude measurement of how effectively habitat is protected, it was the only data available/accessible for the scope of this project. Therefore, it is not wise to rely on these findings for complete and absolute information on the quality of wildlife habitats in Rhode Island. Moreover, preserving land for habitat does not guarantee ecosystem integrity. The management and maintentance of protected land should also be considered as indicators. In addition, there was no real accurate measure for habitat loss in this project. Although many scientists are conducting experiments on the effects of development on species habitat, there isn't a clear answer to how significant the impact of development is to habitat loss. There is much research to be done in this particular area. See Future Objectives for more details.

Habitat Main/ Open Space Main / RI Indicators