Two groundbreaking products were completed this winter—the California Digital Conservation Atlas and the Initial Assessment of the Health and Condition of California's Lands and Natural Resources.

The California Digital Conservation Atlas displays important maps and data sets related to conservation planning in one easy–to–access venue. It is a web based mapping application publicly available for viewing, exploring, and in some instances downloading natural resource, working landscape, and conservation related data for California. The expected audience is natural resource and planning professionals in the public and private sector. It is also useful for educators, researchers, developers, landowners, and the media.

Users of the Conservation Atlas can view data from any part of the State, zooming into specific areas of interest. Moreover, users can put the Conservation Atlas to work for their own planning and projects by creating and printing custom maps and downloading data sets to their own computers. The 45 data layers in the first phase of the Atlas are publicly available, statewide data layers developed and maintained by a variety of public agencies and private organizations. The data are not parcel specific, but usable for large scale landscape planning. Each data set comes with a description that highlights its source, date, appropriate use, and other information.

The Initial Assessment of the Health and Condition of California's Lands and Natural Resources is the first in a series of reports assessing the condition of California's natural and working landscapes, urban open space, and outdoor recreation needs. The Legacy Project's integrated resource assessments will incrementally provide a more firm foundation for evaluating the optimal mix of conservation investments and implementation strategies.

The assessments will also be useful for documenting the conservation progress of agency programs according to adaptive management principles. The current report is also designed to stimulate discussions among agencies about important goals, indicators, and data improvements. In a series of colorful statewide maps, the report illustrates how the Project's assessment methodology can be applied to describe conditions, stressors, and management responses for conserving biodiversity and working landscapes. Visit the California Legacy Project web page (http://legacy.ca.gov) to view the report.

Also last year, the California Legacy Project held “Spotlight on Conservation” workshops in the Central Coast, South Coast, Los Angeles/Ventura, and San Francisco Bay area regions. Then, the first 2003 workshop was held January 16–17 in Victorville. Conservation criteria identified at the workshops are enhancing the data layers of the Conservation Atlas, as well as identifying key data gaps to be filled.

In addition, the Legacy Project is creating statewide maps of existing and emerging conservation planning efforts and regional conservation priorities with information from the workshops. The Legacy Project will continue its “Spotlight on Conservation” workshop series throughout the State this year. Along with a multitude of other information, the 2003 workshop schedule is available on the California Legacy Project website at http://legacy.ca.gov.