At-Risk Species (SGCN) is an indicator of the Midwest Landscape Initiative’s (MLI) 2023 Midwest Conservation Blueprint. The Blueprint is a basemap of priority lands and waters for conservation across the Midwest consisting of over 20 social and environmental values representing diverse interests across society. This indicator was chosen as a targetable, important feature of the MLI goals that will be used to track conditions over time and prioritize areas for conservation. Indicators were defined through elicitation and prioritization exercises with federal and state participants. Criteria for the indicators includes 1) actionable, 2) measurable, 3) relevant to multiple groups across the region, and/or 4) representative of other social and/or environmental values. This indicator identifies the prevalence of species at risk of being threatened with extinction within the Midwest Landscape. It prioritizes areas based on locations of State Conservation Opportunity Areas. This indicator originates from the State Wildlife Action Plans of the 13 Midwest Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (MAFWA) states. To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, converted all input data to 30m rasters, mosaicked all input rasters into a single regional layer, reclassified the regional raster into a binary, and targeted natural assets within Conservation Opportunity Areas to create a layer with the following values: 0 – Not part of any state Conservation Opportunity Areas, 1 – State Conservation Opportunity Areas, not a natural asset, 2 – Natural Assets within State Conservation Opportunity Areas. Finally, we removed highly altered areas using our Highly Altered Areas mask. For full mapping details, please refer to the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2023 Development Process document.
