On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:34 AM, Brian May <b...@mapwise.com> wrote: > > > Also I think its been mentioned the boundary should be tagged as > boundary=protected_area which handles the overall mission of national > forests is to conserve our forests. However, the issue comes up that there > are different levels of conservation ranging from untouched wilderness to > "actively managed" areas, e.g. sustainable forestry, so a blanket > boundary=protected_area may not be appropriate. Is there another tag that > covers a more mixed bag? Is a new tag needed?
As you point out, the level of protection varies. For example the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area overlaps with the Roosevelt National Forest [1]. Wilderness Areas are IUCN 1b category protected areas [2] while US National Forests as a whole are IUCN VI protected areas [2][3]. In addition, regulations, and thus levels of protection, vary from place to place within National Forests that are not part of Wilderness Areas. For example target shooting is prohibited in a number of areas within the Roosevelt National Forest, but is allowed in other areas.[4] National Forests are an administrative area only. They are protected, but the protection level varies. Tagging National Forests as protected areas is acceptable as I said before (but not ideal as I think more about it) in my opinion because an authoritative source, the US Government, says National Forests are categorized as IUCN Category VI protected areas [3]. If we tag them as protected areas, we will have overlapping protected areas (e.g. National Forests and Wilderness Areas) and data consumers will have to select the highest level of protection. Ideally there would be an administrative boundary tag that could be used for National Forests and protected areas would be tagged separately. Not to complicate matters, but this same issue of administration vs protected areas applies to US (and perhaps other) National Parks. For example, there are Wilderness areas within National Parks[5], as well as Research National Areas [6] which I believe are IUCN 1a protected areas. Mike [1] http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/arp/recarea/?recid=80803 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_protected_area_categories [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Forest [4] http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/arp/recreation/?cid=STELPRD3836311 [5] http://www.wilderness.net/NationalParkService [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Natural_Area
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