U.S. Fish & Wildlife ServiceImportant Note: The public version of this indicator that you are seeing here and available for download contains only conservation easements publicly viewable through the National Conservation Easement Database. Through a Memorandum of Understanding with the USDA, we included Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) polygons as additional inputs in the blueprint prioritization, but are unable to publicly share that data. Definition This indicator identifies the ability of land to economically sustain human communities while also providing conservation benefits within the Midwest Landscape. It prioritizes areas based on the locations of conservation easements. Pixels can take the following values: 1 - Closed Access or Unknown Access conservation easement NoData - Open Access or Restricted Access easements, or not a conservation easement Selection This indicator was chosen as a targetable, important feature of the MLI goals that will be used to track conditions over time and prioritize areas for conservation. Indicators were defined through elicitation and prioritization exercises with federal and state participants. Criteria for the indicators includes 1) actionable, 2) measurable, 3) relevant to multiple groups across the region, and/or 4) representative of other social and/or environmental values. Input Data & Mapping Steps This indicator originates from the National Conservation Easement Database. To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, converted the conservation easement polygons into a 30m raster, and reclassified the raster to a binary with the following values: 1 - Closed Access or Unknown Access conservation easement, NoData - Open Access or Restricted Access easements, or not a conservation easement. Finally, we removed highly altered areas using our Highly Altered Areas mask. For full mapping details, please refer to the Midwest Conservation Blueprint Development Process . For a complete download of all Blueprint input and output data, visit the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2026 Data Download.ArcGIS ImageMapLayerhttps://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/b517a5e148524b76b202dfe149bdf123engU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open DataPublicSustainable Land Use Systems (Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2026 Indicator) [United States]Web servicesUnited States2026