Forest Linkage Zones

The Matrix Forest Blocks provided here were developed in partnership between the New York Natural Heritage Program and The Nature Conservancy. The Linkages and Linkage zones were developed by the New York Natural Heritage program. Please see the metadata for each individual layer for more information. This layer depicts the Conditional Minimum Transit Cost linkage zones among forest blocks. A zone between two forest blocks depicts the area around all the paths represented by the cost of the single LCP plus 20%. The goal is to describe the most permeable part of the landscape between a pair of forest blocks. The LCP and the associated linkage zone may help identify habitat stepping stones, riparian zones, or even wide swaths of natural land and thus should be viewed within the context of the landscape.