U.S. Fish & Wildlife ServiceDefinition This indicator identifies the amount of the Midwest economy that is derived from natural resources or associated activities. It prioritizes areas based on the economic value those areas provide for three major natural resource economies in the Midwest: (1) timber harvest, (2) grazing, and (3) agricultural pollination. Pixels can take the following values: 1 - Lowest timber return value 2 - Low timber return value 3 - Medium timber return value 4 - High timber return value 5 - Highest timber return value 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 US Census Bureau USA County Boundaries, Cavender-Bares et al. 2022, the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), and the Protected Areas Database (PAD-US). To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, summed all tree species rows by county, joined county timber values with county boundaries, converted the polygons to a 30m raster based on timber value, removed all non-forest pixels, removed all protected areas with a GAP Status = 1, and classified the resulting raster into the following values: 1 - Lowest timber return value, 2 - Low timber return value, 3 - Medium timber return value, 4 - High timber return value, and 5 - Highest timber return value. 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/dcf920e17a3a4c3d9ebe3ace5c1b7d51engU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open DataPublicNatural Resource Economics - Timber (Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2026 Indicator) [United States]Web servicesUnited States2026