Description: Stream/riparian, wetland, or forested areas that provide connections between patches of significant wildlife habitat (Map 14) of the Hinesburg Town Plan. Developed and maintained by the town with contributions from Vermont Fish & Wildlife and other consultants, including revisions by Alex Weinhagen (Director of Planning & Zoning, Town of Hinesburg) and David Hirth (Hinesburg Conservation Commission, HCC). The layer was originally mapped in 2008 by Polly Harris (Stantec), Jens Hilke (VT Fish & Wilflife), Natalie Steen (LandWorks), and Gerry Livingston (HCC).For more information visit the Hinesburg Town Plan webpage
Description: Subset of the forest blocks that include combinations of bedrock, soils, landforms, and/or other physical landscape features that are either rare in Vermont or the surrounding region. These forest blocks were identified by state ecologists and biologists during the Vermont Conservation Design to supplement the physical diversity included in the highest priority interior forest blocks and connector blocks and to ensure that the state’s full diversity of physical habitats is captured in and represented by the overall Vermont Conservation Design network.For more information about physical landscape diversity blocks visit the Vermont Conservation Design webpage.
Description: Includes the town’s interconnected network of streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes and the immediately adjacent riparian and valley bottom forests, wetlands, and other natural/semi-natural covers. These areas were identified by state ecologists and biologists during an early update of the Vermont Conservation Design. These areas are critical to natural stream, river, and floodplain processes, contribute to broader ecological connectivity across the landscape, and provide important wildlife and plant habitat and travel corridors. For more information about riparian wildlife connectivity visit the Vermont Conservation Design webpage
Description: Core wildlife habitats are large tracts of forest and wetlands and smaller areas of interior forest with few roads or houses. These areas are identified has as a wildlife habitat of special concern in the Hinesburg Town Plan and included in Map 14 of the Plan. This dataset was developed by the Town of Hinesburg around 2012 and consists of blocks 700 acres or larger, and interior areas (100m meters from edge) of smaller blocks. For more information visit the Hinesburg Town Plan webpage: https://www.hinesburg.org/townplan/.