The Central Hardwoods Joint Venture focuses its work within the Central Hardwoods Bird Conservation Region (CHBCR), one of 67 Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs) mapped from Alaska through Mexico. Each is an ecologically distinct area of North America with similar bird communities, habitats, and resource management issues. BCRs were delineated under the auspices of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative to facilitate communication among the bird conservation initiatives; systematically and scientifically apportion the US into conservation units; facilitate a regional approach to bird conservation; promote new, expanded, or restructured partnerships; and identify overlapping or conflicting conservation priorities. Learn more

Planning within the Central Hardwoods BCR typically follows The Forest Service National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units, another approach that classifies the United States into ecologically distinct areas. This hierarchical classification steps down from Domains to Divisions to Provinces and then to Sections and Subsections.

Within the CHBCR, we have divided Ecological Subsections into even smaller (higher resolution) units of distinct communities called Land Type Associations (LTAs). LTAs delineate landscapes ranging from 10,000 – 100,000s acres with similar characteristics and ecological potential.