A primary objective of SAMBI was to delineate focus areas, areas in which conservation actions are implemented for high priority species and habitats. Essentially, focus areas are important to the life history of a wide variety of high priority birds where financial and conservation resources can be expended to have positive effects on these bird populations. These data were developed as a means of capturing existing knowledge and beliefs about the most important areas for bird conservation in the south Atlantic Coastal Plain of five states, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The areas indentified varied widely in size and scale, from whole subregions to relatively small, specific sites (e.g., individual management units or islands). For each focus area, participants were asked to identify the species or group of species for which the area was most important. Participants were separated by state, each group comprising individuals with knowledge of landbirds, waterbirds, shorebirds, and waterfowl, and were asked to map on 1:250,000 scale topographic maps, important (focus) areas in each state for each bird group. More details on how these focus areas were delineated can be found in the first two references below.

References for process of delineating focus areas for SAMBI:

1) Watson, C., C. Hayes, J. McCauley, and A. Milliken. 2005. The South Atlantic Migratory Bird Initiative – An Integrated Approach to Conservation of “All Birds Across All Habitats”. Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002 March 20-24; Asilomar, California, Volume 1 and 2. USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, ForestService, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Albany, CA. 1294 p

http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr191/psw_gtr191_0266-0276_watson.pdf

2) SAMBI Implementation Plan –

http://www.acjv.org/sambi_plan.htm

http://www.acjv.org/SAMBI/Delineation_of_Focus_Areas.pdf

3) ACJV Waterfowl Implementation Plan Focus Areas – Guidelines for delineation of waterfowl focus areas can be found in the ACJV WIP section titled The Plan, http://acjv.org/wip/acjv_wip_main.pdf, page 66, Item 7.2, Important Geographic Areas for Waterfowl Habitat Conservation in the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture.

Additional Guidance on delineation of BCR focus areas:

1) White paper titled “SUGGESTIONS FOR A SUCCESSFUL BIRD CONSERVATION REGION WORKSHOP” by David Pashley – U.S. NABCI Coordinator, Art Martell – Canadian NABCI Coordinator, Craig Watson – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kevin Loftus – Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and Andrew Milliken - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2001. These suggestions are derived from successful Bird Conservation Region (BCR) meetings for the South Atlantic Migratory Bird Initiative (part of BCR 27) and the Lower Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Plain (BCR 13). Available upon request.

2) BCR Coordinators Workshop, Patuxent National Wildlife Research Center, October 13, 2004. Minutes include discussion of core elements for BCR planning, of which one component is the delineation of focus areas. Available upon request.