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PACIFIC NORTHWEST


The Pacific Northwest Coast ecoregion is a narrow, elongated ecoregion
located west of the Coast Range and extending from southeastern Oregon
in the United States to the northern tip of Vancouver Island in province
of British Columbia, Canada. This ecoregion includes almost all of
the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island, and encompasses nearly
18 million acres of temperate coniferous forests, montane forests,
wetlands, and wild beaches. The ecoregion also encompasses approximately
3.7 million acres of coastal waters, out to 40m in depth.
Ecologically, the Pacific Northwest Coast ecoregion is dominated
by coastal and estuarine nearshore habitats and western hemlock –
sitka spruce coniferous forests. About 58% of the ecoregion is publicly
owned, while over half of the remaining private ownership is managed
as industrial timberland. Small towns are scattered through the ecoregion
from Oregon’s southern coastline to southern Vancouver Island
but the ecoregion’s total population is well below that of the
two U.S. state and Canadian province that it straddles. Fueled by
tourism and retirees, human development of the ecoregion has increased
steadily in recent decades. Additional information on this ecoregion
is available from the Washington
Biodiversity Council.
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Image: Keith Lazelle |
Assessment Summary:
- Published August 2006
- Portfolio of 164 priority conservation areas
- Conservation portfolio covers 45% of the ecoregion.
- 397 conservation targets identified
All the data, decision support tools, and site priorities from theassessment
are available to inform and support partner conservation and management
efforts. Please use these links to download specific components of
the ecoregional assessment.
The spatial data available here represents the most basic level
of information produced in the assessment. To access more
in-depth data and
information, please
.
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