| Summary: | Habitat protection has been a major component of the Exxon Valdez oil spill resto- ration process. The acquisition of private lands, or partial interests in private lands, is intended to promote natural recovery of spill-injured resources and services by removing the threat of additional development impacts. These lands will be managed in perpetuity for the restoration and protection of resources and services injured by the spill and for the enjoyment of the public for purposes of subsistence use, sport fishing and hunting, personal use fishing, trapping, recreational uses and commercial fishing. The Comprehensive Habitat Protection Process is the method that was designed to achieve this objective. During the Large Parcel Process, over one million acres within the oil spill affected area were evaluated, scored, and ranked by a multi-cri- teria evaluation process. Initially lands were divided into large parcels encompass- ing entire bays and watersheds. Criteria were used to assess the habitat and human use values associated with each parcel and the protection benefit that acquisition would provide for 19 injured resources and associated services. This process pro- vided the basis for the acquisition of protective bundles of rights on over 637,000 acres of land in the Kodiak, Kenai Peninsula, and Prince William Sound regions. During the Small Parcel Process, smaller parcels, those less than 1,000 acres nominated by willing sellers, were also evaluated using criteria modified to reflect the unique benefits to injured resources that smaller parcels could provide in relation to the surrounding environment, management units and local communities. Over 9,000 acres were protected through this process. The GIS data was retrieved from the Alaska State Geo-Spatial Data Clearinghouse in the Environmental category of Geo-Spatial Data listings, at the following URL: http://www.asgdc.state.ak.us.
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