The completed Idaho land stewardship layer can be downloaded from the Landscape Dynamics Lab's Data page, or you can contact us and we'll send a copy to you. A map of the Idaho Current Land Cover layer can be viewed or downloaded from the ID-GAP Maps page.

To fulfill the analytical mission of GAP, it is necessary to compare the mapped distribution of elements of biodiversity with their representation in different categories of land ownership and management. We use the term “stewardship” in place of “ownership” in recognition that legal ownership does not necessarily equate to the entity charged with management of the resource, and that the mix of ownership and managing entities is a complex and rapidly changing condition not suitably mapped by GAP. At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between stewardship and management status in that a single category of land stewardship such as a national forest may contain several degrees of management for biodiversity. The purpose of comparing biotic distribution with stewardship is to provide a method by which land stewards can assess their relative amount of responsibility for the management of a species or plant community, and identify other stewards sharing that responsibility. This information can reveal opportunities for cooperative management of that resource, which directly supports the primary mission of GAP to provide objective, scientific information to decision makers and managers to make informed decisions regarding biodiversity.

After comparison to stewardship, it is also necessary to compare biotic occurrence to categories of management status. The purpose of this comparison is to identify the need for change in management status for the distribution of individual elements or areas containing high degrees of diversity. Such changes can be accomplished in many ways that do not affect the stewardship status. GAP currently uses a scale of 1 to 4 to denote relative degree of maintenance of biodiversity for each tract. A status of “1” denotes the highest, most permanent level of maintenance, and “4” represents the lowest level of biodiversity management, or unknown status.

Stewardship map data were assembled from two sources. 1:100,000 data were carried forward from a previous work at the Idaho Gap Analysis Lab completed from 1989-1991 (Caicco et al. 1995). That data set included major administrative land units including those under federal, state, tribal, and private ownership.

Status 1 and 2 polygons, digitized at 1:24,000 scale, were provided by the Idaho Conservation Data Center (CDC) and were combined with existing 1:100,000 data. Sliver polygons, resulting from the discrepancy between parcel boundaries digitized at disparate scales, were removed, as were those polygons smaller than 2 hectares, the minimum mapping unit (mmu) for Idaho Gap Analysis. Polygons in the land stewardship coverage were assigned protection status values from 1 to 4 based off of their owner and management status tracked by Idaho Conservation Data Center.

Public lands (federal and state) comprise approximately 14,980,783 ha (69.31%) of Idaho. State lands comprise approximately 1,109,409 ha (5.13%) of Idaho. Private lands make up 6,448,141 ha (29.83%) of Idaho. Of this amount, 11,192 ha (0.174% is in status 1management). The Nature Conservancy owns the most private status 1 land (Table 4.2). The Nature Conservancy owns and manages 94.53% of all private status 1 lands in the state.

Area of Idaho land in status 1 and 2 is 321,499 ha (1.49%) and 2,229,540 ha (10.32%), respectively. 12,442,580 ha (57.57%) of Idaho are in protection status 3, and 6,436,949 ha (29.78%) are in status 4. The majority of status 2 lands are contained in Idaho’s wilderness area complex, managed by the USFS (1,556,881 ha, 69.83% of status 2 lands). Other major status 2 land managers are: Department of Energy (Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) 231,561 ha, 10.39%), wildlife protection areas and wildlife refuges managed by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service (33,055 ha, 1.48% of status 2 lands) and Idaho Department of Fish and Game (Wildlife Management Areas, 119,503 ha, 5.36%).