U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Rising to the Urgent Challenge Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change We must act now, as if the future of fish and wildlife and people hangs in the balance — for indeed, all indications are that it does.

Dedication In memory of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sam D. Hamilton (1955 – 2010), whose commitment to rising to the challenge of a changing climate inspired this plan.

On the cover: Polar bears. Courtesy of National Geographic Society. Table of Contents

Executive Overview / 2 Our Vision / 5 Introduction / 6 The Crisis / 7 The Challenge / 8 Our Committed Response / 11 Leadership and Management / 11 Seven Bold Commitments / 13 Three Progressive Strategies: Adaptation, Mitigation, Engagement / 14 Strategic Goals & Objectives / 19 Adaptation / 19 Goal 1: We will work with partners to develop and implement a National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy / 19 Goal 2: We will develop long-term capacity for biological planning and conservation design and apply it to drive conservation at broad, landscape scales / 20 Goal 3 : We will plan and deliver landscape conservation actions that support climate change adaptations by fish and wildlife of ecological and societal significance 2/ 3 Goal 4: We will develop monitoring and research partnerships that make available complete and objective information to plan, deliver, evaluate, and improve actions that facilitate fish and wildlife adaptation to accelerating climate change /2 6 Mitigation / 27 Goal 5: We will change our business practices to achieve carbon neutrality by the Year 2020 / 27 Goal 6: To conserve and restore fish and wildlife habitats at landscape scales while simultaneously sequestering atmospheric greenhouse gases, we will build our capacity to understand, apply, and share biological carbon sequestration science; and we will work with partners to implement carbon sequestration projects in strategic locations / 28 Engagement / 29 Goal 7: We will engage Service employees; our local, State, Tribal, national, and international partners in the public and private sectors; our key constituencies and stakeholders; and everyday citizens in a new era of collaborative conservation in which, together, we seek solutions to the impacts of climate change and other 21st century stressors of fish and wildlife /2 9 Rising to the Challenge / 31 Literature Cited / 32

1 Executive Overview

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is an agency born of Our Climate Change Principles ecological crisis and raised on the nation’s will to respond. The Service’s genesis was the Federal response in 1871 to the collapse in the nation’s food Priority-Setting. We will continually evaluate fishes from overharvesting, and its mandate was to find ways to reverse that our priorities and approaches, make difficult decline. By the early 1900s, a crisis over the decimation of migratory birds choices, take calculated risks and adapt to climate change. for their plumes prompted the development of a national system of lands and waters set aside as refuges for wildlife and the passage of the first Federal Partnership. We will commit to a new spirit of coordination, collaboration and wildlife laws. By the mid-1960s, the loss and threat of loss of species of fish interdependence with others. and wildlifea from human-induced pressures grew the Service’s mission to also Best Science. We will reflect scientific include the conservation and recovery of threatened and endangered species. excellence, professionalism, and integrity in all our work. ver its 139-year history, the Service of species extinctions. In turn, these Landscape Conservation. We will Ohas faced every challenge to the changes will adversely affect local, future of the nation’s fish and wildlife State, Tribal, regional, national and emphasize the conservation of habitats heritage head-on. As an agency international economies and cultures; within sustainable landscapes, applying our within the Department of the Interior and will diminish the goods, services, Strategic Habitat Conservation framework. (Department), we have attracted to our and social benefits that we Americans Technical Capacity. We will assemble and ranks those individuals whose personal are accustomed to receiving, at little commitment to conserving, protecting, cost to ourselves, from ecosystems use state-of-the-art technical capacity to and enhancing America’s fish and across our nation. meet the climate change challenge. wildlife resources is matched by their Global Approach. We will be a leader in professional resolve to do whatever it Given the disruption that a changing national and international efforts to address takes to accomplish that mission. The climate implies for our mission, our passion and creativity that drove Spencer nation, and our world, we in the Service climate change. Baird, Paul Kroegel, Guy Bradley, J.N. and the Department cannot afford to “Ding” Darling, Rachel Carson and simply give lip service to this crisis and countless others who have stood in the go on about business as usual. We are at breach for wildlife lives on in the hearts a crossroads in our nation’s conservation and minds of today’s Fish and Wildlife history. We must rise up and respond Service employees. to a 21st century conservation challenge with 21st century organizational, At the dawn of the 21st century, we find managerial, and scientific tools and our commitment and resolve and our approaches. To address and combat passion and creativity being called upon climate change and its impacts, we must once again as we face what portends position the Service more strategically to be the greatest challenge to fish and for this battle. We must build shared wildlife conservation in the history scientific and technical capabilities with A diver monitors coral reef health at the of the Service: The Earth’s climate is others and work more collaboratively FWS-managed Palmyra Atoll National changing at an accelerating rate that has than ever before with the conservation Wildlife Refuge. Photo: J. Maragos / u s f w s the potential to cause abrupt changes communityb, in particular, our State in ecosystems and increase the risk and Tribal partners, who share direct responsibility for managing our nation’s wildlife resources.

a Our use of the term fish and wildlife throughout this plan includes fish, wildlife, and plants, and the habitats upon which all three depend. b The conservation community includes governments, business and industry, non-governmental organizations, academia, private landowners, and citizens who are interested and active in conservation efforts.

2 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Executive Overview

Tide Returns to Nisqually Estuary

As a Service and Department we must act decisively, recognizing that climate Individual change threatens to exacerbate other existing pressures on the sustainability of commitment to a our fish and wildlife resources. We must act boldly, without having all the answers, group effort — that is confident that we will learn and adapt as River delta restoration projects are we go. And most importantly, we must act what makes a team considered crucial to provide increased now, as if the future of fish and wildlife and people hangs in the balance — for work, a company resiliency to large estuary systems and indeed, all indications are that it does. illustrate a tool for adaptation in the face of work, a society work, climate change and related impacts of sea As a Service, we are committed to level rise. After a century of diking off tidal examining everything we do, every a civilization work. flow, the Brown Farm Dike was removed decision we make, and every dollar we Vince Lombardi, 1913 – 1970, American football to inundate 762 acres of Nisqually (WA) spend through the lens of climate change, coach and national symbol of single-minded National Wildlife Refuge in October 2009. fully confident in our workforce to rise to determination to win Along with 140 acres of tidal wetlands this challenge and to lead from in front and from behind. We recognize their restored by the Nisqually Indian Tribe, the efforts that are already underway, and Nisqually Delta represents the largest tidal we look to our employees for their on- Our Strategic Plan’s primary purposes marsh restoration project in the Pacific the-ground knowledge and expertise in are to (1) lay out our vision for Northwest to assist in recovery of Puget focusing our energies and recalibrating accomplishing our mission to “work Sound salmon and wildlife populations. our activities. with others to conserve, protect, and During the past decade, the refuge and close enhance fish, wildlife, and plants partners, including the Tribe and Ducks Our Strategic Plan acknowledges that and their habitats for the continuing Unlimited, have restored more than 22 miles no single organization or agency can benefit of the American people” in the address an environmental challenge of face of accelerating climate change; of the historic tidal slough systems and such global proportions without allying and (2) provide direction for our own re-connected historic floodplains to the itself with others in partnerships across organization and its employees, Puget Sound in Washington, increasing the nation and around the world. This defining our role within the context potential salt marsh habitat in the southern document commits us to a philosophy of the Department of the Interior and reach of Puget Sound by 50 percent. The of interdependent, collaborative the larger conservation community. In project also restored 25 acres of riparian conservation, rooted in our Climate this plan, we express our commitment surge plain forest, an extremely depleted Change Principles (see sidebar, page 2). to our vision through strategic goals and objectives that we believe must type of tidal forest important for juvenile be accomplished to sustain fish and salmon and songbirds. wildlife nationally and internationally. Restoration of the Nisqually estuary is an In an appended 5-Year Action Plan adaptation approach that helps promote for Implementing the Climate Change Strategic Plan, we identify specific actions system resiliency to climate change effects that will lead to the accomplishment of such as: our goals and objectives. n Increased winter storms, rainfall, and flooding n Loss of forest cover due to increases in insect infestations and fire n Rise in sea level resulting in loss of shoreline areas n Loss of habitats and biodiversity

(Above) Nisqually estuary. Photo: u s f w s

Executive Overview / 3 Executive Overview

We recognize that as an organization, The goals and objectives of our Strategic Plan are nested the Service has been entrusted by the under three major strategies: American people with legal authorities for fish and wildlife conservation that Adaptation: Minimizing the impact of climate change on fish and wildlife through the are national and international in scope application of cutting-edge science in managing species and habitats. and that put us in a position of unique responsibility within the conservation Mitigation: Reducing levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. community. These authorities and responsibilities include working across Engagement: Joining forces with others to seek solutions to the challenges and threats to jurisdictional boundaries in shared fish and wildlife conservation posed by climate change. responsibility with all 50 States to manage fish and wildlife populations; conserving endangered and threatened species, inter-jurisdictional fish, and migratory birds; managing an unequaled conservation land base, the 150-million- acre National Wildlife Refuge System; and collaborating in carrying out B rian J on k ers / USFWS conservation activities internationally through conventions, treaties, and agreements with foreign nations.

By virtue of this public trust, the Service accepts its obligation to take leadership in helping to catalyze the conservation community’s collective response to climate change. We will bring the community together to engage in dialogue; identify common interests and goals; and define innovative, collaborative, and effective strategies for addressing this shared crisis. We recognize that our own future success in conserving fish and wildlife will depend on how well we integrate our Federal and State biologists survey aquatic resources to document the effects of changing efforts with those of our partners, how temperatures and water quality. quickly we can build needed technical and technological capacities and capabilities, and how strategic we are with our limited resources in addressing climate-induced changes.

Our Strategic Plan acknowledges the climate crisis as one of enormous consequence and challenge for fish and wildlife conservation. We put this plan forward as a manifestation of our resolve, as individuals and as an organization, to face this challenge with a sense of duty and integrity, and a spirit of public service and optimism.

4 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Our Vision

Over the 21s t century, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior envision a North American continent continuing to be altered by accelerating climate change, but managed to sustain diverse, distributed, and abundant populations of fish and wildlife through conservation of healthy habitats in a network of interconnected, ecologically functioningc landscapes.

hile many species will continue to Wthrive, we also envision that some Rising Sea Levels on North Carolina Coast populations and species may decline or be lost, and some will only survive in the North Carolina’s east coast is wild through our direct and continuous identified as particularly intervention. We will be especially vulnerable to climate change challenged to conserve species and because it is so long, low and habitats that are particularly vulnerabled flat. As rising sea levels have to climate-driven changes, but we will dedicate our absolute best efforts and pushed saltwater into the area, expertise to the task, understanding peat soils are degrading and fully that we must continue to meet our plants and trees have died. obligations for conserving trust species. Researchers estimate that 1 We will need to make choices and set million acres along the coast priorities and, working with our partners, could be lost within 100 years. apply ourselves where we can make the greatest difference. We know that the estuarine waters surrounding Alligator We see climate change as an issue that River National Wildlife Refuge are getting saltier. We’ve seen with our own eyes shoreline will unite the conservation community losses and plant community changes on thousands of acres of this 153,000-acre Refuge. like no other issue has since the early Modeling data suggests that if nothing is done, we’ll lose up to 67 percent of swamp land and 1960s, when Rachel Carson sounded an alarm about pesticides. We envision a 90 of dry land by 2100 — that’s most of the Refuge. new era of collaborative conservation We’re finding opportunities in the crisis. We’re working with The Nature Conservancy, in which members of the conservation Duke Energy, and other partners to create a management response that includes building community work interdependently, resilience into the land and connecting Refuge lands to other lands. Duke Energy donated building knowledge, sharing expertise, and pooling resources as we craft explicit $1 million that will fund climate change research and activities to help wildlife adapt to the landscape-scale goals and pursue these effects of rising sea levels on the Refuge. goals together. We foresee unparalleled Mike Bryant, Project Leader, North Carolina Coastal Plain Refuges Complex, Manteo, NC opportunities to engage with, and enlist the involvement of, private (Above) Saltwater intrusion is affecting plant life at Alligator River NWR. citizens, businesses and industry, non- Photo: Debbie Crane / The Nature Conservancy governmental organizations, and national and international governments at all levels to conserve fish and wildlife in the face of climate change.

c Ecologically-functioning landscapes are those in which key ecological processes (such as disturbance regimes) are maintained or restored to promote resilience to climate change. d According to the IPCC, vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. It is a function of the sensitivity of a particular system to climate changes, its exposure to those changes, and its capacity to adapt to those changes.

Our Vision / 5 Introduction

Climate change is an immense, serious, and sobering challenge — This plan is a starting point for action one that will affect fish and wildlife profoundly. At the same time, climate and discussion. It was drafted by a team of Service employees representing change is galvanizing the conservation community in ways we have not seen all regions and programs, and has since a half-century ago, when Silent Spring alerted the world to the hazards been revised to reflect the thousands of comments from Service employees of overuse of pesticides and launched a worldwide environmental movement. and members of the public. We look forward to updating it further as we s concern for climate change understand the direction and magnitude work with and learn from others, as our Aand its impacts grows, so do the of climate change and its effects on fish experiences and knowledge grow, and opportunities for the Service and and wildlife. as the conservation community unites members of the conservation community more closely in a new era of collaborative to pool our talents, imagination, It remains for the Service to do two conservation. creativity, and spirit of public service things: First, we must focus the talents, to reduce and manage those impacts creativity and energy of our employees in ways that sustain fish and wildlife. on a common set of strategies, goals, Did You Know… Working interdependently and objectives and actions for addressing collaboratively, the Service will mount climate change impacts. Second, we n In the Arctic, record losses of sea ice a bold response to climate change, on must provide employees with additional over the past decade are affecting the the ground, where our actions have the support in terms of knowledge, distribution, behavior, and abundance most impact; and in other settings where technology, and resources to enable of polar bears, animals that are almost policies, priorities, and budgets are them to realize their full potential in shaped and tough choices and decisions conserving fish and wildlife in the face completely dependent upon sea ice for are made. of climate change. survival.

n In the Southeast, rising sea levels are Across the Service, our employees This Strategic Plan establishes a basic have initiated action to address framework within which the U.S. Fish expected to flood as much as 30 percent of climate change. Some employees are and Wildlife Service will work as part the habitat on the Service’s coastal Refuges. monitoring sea level rise and exploring of a broader, Department-wide strategyg n In the Southwest, climate change is ways of safeguarding our coastal and with the larger conservation already exacerbating deep droughts, National Wildlife Refuges and the trust community (especially States and resources they support. Others are Tribes as entities with formal wildlife increasing pressure on water uses at the working tirelessly with water managers management responsibilities) to help Service’s National Fish Hatcheries and to ensure fish and wildlife resources ensure the sustainability of fish and National Wildlife Refuges. are considered meaningfully in water wildlife in light of accelerating climate n In the Northwest, climate change is allocation decisions, particularly in the change. The plan looks broadly at Southwest, where climate change is how climate change is affecting these warming the landscape and enabling insect likely to exacerbate drought. Some are resources; what our role will be as a key pests to expand their ranges and destroy busy calculating the Service’s carbon member of the conservation community ecologically and commercially valuable footprinte and devising innovative ways with national responsibilities for fish forests. to help the Service become carbon and wildlife conservation; and what neutralf. Still other employees are we will contribute to the international reaching out to our workforce and our community and its campaign to ensure external partners to help them better the future of fish and wildlife globally.

e A carbon footprint is typically defined as “the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product” (UK Carbon Trust 2008). f Being carbon neutral is typically defined as having a net zero carbon footprint, i.e., achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount that is sequestered or offset. g The Department’s climate change strategy is described in Secretarial Order 3289 .

6 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change The Crisis

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from 2 – 3°C above preindustrial levels. observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, Global average temperature increases of 0.74°C are already documented, and widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level. ... temperature increases in some areas are Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the projected to exceed 3.0°C over the next decade. The IPCC further concludes mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic that substantial changes in structure greenhouse gas concentrations.” So concludes the Intergovernmental and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report published are very likely to occur with a global warming of more than 2 – 3°C above pre- in 20071. There is no longer any doubt that the Earth’s climate is changing industrial levels. These changes will have at an accelerating rate and that the changes are largely the result of predominantly negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem goods and human-generated greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere caused services (e.g., water and food). by increasing human development and population growth. Climate change has manifested itself in rising sea levels, melting sea ice and glaciers, changing The IPCC also reports that the resilience of many ecosystems around the world precipitation patterns, growing frequency and severity of storms, and is likely to be exceeded this century increasing ocean acidification. by an unprecedented combination of climate change; disturbances associated with climate change, such as flooding, growing body of evidence has linked environment, evidence is growing that drought, wildfire, and insects; and Aaccelerating climate changeh with higher water temperatures resulting other global change-drivers, including observed changes in fish and wildlife, from climate change are negatively land-use changes, pollution, habitat their populations, and their habitats impacting cold- and cool-water fish fragmentation, urbanization, and growing in the United States2. Polar bear populations across the country6. Along human populations and economies. population declines have already been our coasts, rising sea levels have begun to These projected changes have enormous noted in Canada3, and extirpations of affect fish and wildlife habitats, including implications for management of fish Bay checkerspot butterfly populations those used by shorebirds and sea turtles and wildlife and their habitats around in the San Francisco Bay4 area are also that nest on our coastal National Wildlife the world. documented. Across the continental Refuges7. In the oceans, subtropical United States, climate change is and tropical corals in shallow waters Climate change has the potential to affecting the migration cycles and have already suffered major bleaching cause abrupt ecosystem changes and body condition of migratory songbirds, events driven by increases in sea surface increased species extinctions. These causing decoupling of the arrival dates temperatures.2 changes will reduce the ability of natural of birds on their breeding grounds and systems to provide many societal the availability of the food they need for The immensity and urgency of goods and services — including the successful reproduction5. the climate change challenge are availability of clean water, our planet’s indeed sobering. The IPCC’s Fourth lifeblood — which in turn will impact Climate change has very likely increased Assessment Report1 estimates that local, regional, and national economies the size and number of wildfires, insect approximately 20 – 30 percent of the and cultures. Clearly, we cannot delay outbreaks, pathogens, disease outbreaks, world’s plant and animal species assessed in addressing climate change effects on and tree mortality in the interior as of 2006 are likely to be at increasingly fish and wildlife. They demand urgent West, the Southwest, and Alaska and high risk of extinction as global mean attention and aggressive action. will continue to do so.2 In the aquatic temperatures exceed a warming of

h Hereafter, when we refer to climate change, we mean accelerating climate change. While climate change has occurred throughout the history of our planet, current changes are occurring at a greatly accelerated rate, largely as a result of human activities.

The Crisis / 7 The Challenge

Mission success in fish and wildlife conservation over the coming o succeed in sustaining fish and decades will require unprecedented cooperation and partnership Twildlife, our plans and actions must recognize all management roles and among governments, private sector and non-government organizations, authorities and realistically reflect the and individual citizens. Consequently, the greatest challenge we and other limitations and uncertainties in our members of the conservation community face is the need to form new and understanding of climate change. They must target stewardship activities at interdependent relationships, sharing integrated capacities, building on all geographic scales, beginning with common strengths, identifying and addressing weaknesses, and focusing our the design of conservation strategies at landscape scales. Our plans and actions responses on shared goals and objectives. For the Service, this is especially must also encourage collaborative true of our relationships with State fish and wildlife agencies, which have approaches that give common purpose management authority on much of our nation’s lands and waters; and with to our employees and our conservation activities at local, State, regional, Tribal fish and wildlife management authorities. national, continental, international, and global levels.

Effect of Warmer Winters On Spring Snowpack and Summer Stream-flows Our experiences with climate change, such as the effect of sea ice changes on In the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon, spring snowpack represents a reservoir of water polar bears, have taught us that we will that will sustain stream-flows throughout the summer. In recent years, warmer winters have be increasingly challenged to recalibrate resulted in more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, reducing the spring snowpack. our conservation goals by integrating climate change. We need to plan for Rivers in the upper Basin have shown rather large declines in stream inflows in recent conservation on landscape scales and decades. This includes inflows to Upper Klamath Lake that provide water for irrigation, be prepared to act quickly, sometimes National Wildlife Refuges, sucker habitat, and downstream river-flows for salmon. without the scientific certainty we would prefer. This trend means that in the Klamath Basin, as elsewhere, we can no longer assume that the future will look like the past. As warming trends continue, there will be less water available Climate change is the transformational to meet competing demands. Like many water issues in the West, resolution of water issues conservation challenge of our time, in the Klamath Basin will require landscape-scale solutions and the active involvement and not only because of its direct effects, cooperation of all stakeholders. but also because of its influence on the other stressors that have been and Tim Mayer, Water Resources Branch Hydrologist, Engineering Division, Portland, OR will continue to be major conservation priorities. JUpperuly to S Kelamathptember ULakepper NKletam Inflow,ath Lake N1961et In ftolow 2007, 1961 to 2007 This graph 300 shows the actual Many other issues, such as the spread July to September net inflow volume measurements of Statistical trend line (p=0.003) net inflows. The and control of invasive species; the 250 mounting pressures on limited water

) dashed statistical- a f t

( supplies; the need for robust fire 200 trend line indicates e that despite some management to help conserve natural o l u m v 150 variability from systems; the harm to species from

l o w year to year, exposure to environmental contaminants; n f I there has been a

e t 100 continued changes in land use, N downward trend specifically habitat loss; and the impacts 50 from July–Sept. of all of these factors on biodiversity, since 1961. have been and will continue to pose 0 tremendous challenges to sustaining 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 healthy, vibrant ecosystems.

8 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change The Challenge

Finally, unanticipated impacts of climate Climate change is the transformational change have already occurred and are likely to occur in the future. These conservation challenge of our time impacts are difficult to predict based on our current understanding of climate and ecological systems, adding further uncertainty to our ability to predict Climate change does not replace these Future Impacts Are Uncertain the future. We must account for this other threats or render them less One of the major challenges of uncertainty as we design, implement important; they must remain priorities in addressing climate change effects on fish and evaluate our plans in response to the years ahead. It is, however, essential and wildlife is identifying and addressing climate change and as we carry out our that we understand how climate change uncertaintyi in our understanding of management, regulatory and monitoring will exacerbate these threats and pose future climate change and how that programs. We must learn as we go, using new ones. For example, climate change change will affect ecological systems. Our new knowledge and results of focused will allow the range of some invasive understanding of future climate change is research to reduce uncertainty. As we species to expand, perhaps markedly. based largely on projections from global learn more about climate change, we will Climate change will also make some climate models (also known as General be better able to refine our planning, regions drier, further complicating what Circulation Models) that are run using decisions, and management actions to are already very challenging efforts to different greenhouse gas emissions reflect that greater understanding. capture water and deliver it to natural scenarios developed by the IPCC. systems. These changes in precipitation These projections contain a degree of patterns will also affect fire regimes. Our uncertainty resulting from the inability of employees and partners will need to take The Challenge of Thinking climate models to perfectly simulate the this into account in their management Differently about Partnerships climate system, particularly at regional activities so as to protect both the natural geographic scales and less than decadal In the Southeast, we have built new world and the places where people live. time intervals; and uncertainty over relationships with traditional and non- which greenhouse gas emissions scenario In addition, climate change will have traditional partners — The Conservation will be realized in the future. As the many unforeseen impacts on land use and Fund, American Electric Power Company, IPCC has stated, the emissions scenarios development. For example, rising seas and Entergy Inc.— to help achieve their are “based on assumptions concerning… will result in immense pressure to build future socio-economic and technological objectives and ours. Nine years ago, we sea walls and other structures to protect developments that may or may not launched an innovative program in the coastal development. These actions will be realized, and are therefore Lower Mississippi Valley aimed at restoring impact the fish and wildlife that rely upon subject to substantial uncertainty.” native habitats to bolster populations of nearby beaches, salt marshes and other There also remains much uncertainty natural habitats. Furthermore, climate wildlife and migratory birds through a over how climate change will affect change may divert development pressure carbon sequestration initiative. Together ecological systems at different from coastal areas to relatively higher we have added more than 40,000 acres scales, especially in its interactions ground as people seek to escape places of habitat to the National Wildlife Refuge with such non-climate stressors as threatened by rising seas. Together, all land-use changes. System and reforested more than 80,000 of these stressors will have impacts on acres with more than 22 million trees, species that are imperiled today, and they sequestering 30 million metric tons of could cause others to become imperiled for the first time. carbon over the project’s 70-year lifetime. Pete Jerome, Refuges and Wildlife Area Supervisor, Southeast Region, Atlanta, GA

i Uncertainty is an expression of the degree to which a value (e.g., the future state of the climate system) is unknown. Uncertainty can result from lack of information or from disagreement about what is known or even knowable. It may have many types of sources, from quantifiable errors in the data to ambiguously defined concepts or terminology or uncertain projections of human behavior. Uncertainty can, therefore, be represented by quantitative measures or by qualitative statements.

The Challenge / 9 The Challenge

Scope and Magnitude Are Great Making people more aware of how accelerating climate change is harming Another major challenge of accelerated The same ecosystem fish and wildlife and of how it reduces climate change is its unprecedented the flow of societal goods and affects scope and magnitude. In the history of functions that provide ecosystem services is a challenge wildlife conservation, the Service and for the Service, our State and Tribal the larger conservation community have for sustainable counterparts, and the conservation never experienced a challenge that is community at large. The same ecosystem fish and wildlife so ubiquitous across the landscape. Our functions that provide for sustainable existing conservation infrastructure fish and wildlife populations also provide populations also will be pressed to its limits — quite communities with significant benefits, likely beyond its limits — to respond such as good water quality, flood and fire provide communities successfully. New and different capacities protection, and recreation. Meeting the and capabilities will be required, and our challenge will require that the Service with significant dedicated employees will be challenged and its partners use every available to acquire new skills quickly. We may communication tool to engage the public benefits, such as good find that elements of our current legal, about the ecological, economic, social, and regulatory, and policy frameworks within cultural costs exacted by climate change. water quality, flood which we and our partners operate are no longer adequate to encourage and fire protection, and support the new approaches and innovative thinking needed to address and recreation. climate change effectively. In our land management, the original purposes for which some of our National Wildlife Refuges have been established may change or become obsolete. We will need Determining Effects of Climate Change on Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout financial and technological resources Air temperature in the Southwest has commensurate with this great challenge; and we will need the political leadership increased markedly over the last 30 years, and will to pursue necessary statutory and greater increases are predicted. and regulatory changes, apply predictive Because air temperature strongly influences models, make risk-based decisions, water temperature, the temperature of and manage and operate adaptively in streams that harbor our native Rio Grande changing environments. cutthroat trout may have already increased, or likely will increase. Trout love cold water. Warmer water temperatures could affect their health, their ability to compete with non-native trout, the amount of suitable habitat available to them, and their food supply. The Service’s Southwest Region is funding research to examine historical water temperatures in comparison to current water temperatures in streams occupied by Rio Grande cutthroat trout. In conjunction with other studies that look at the temperature tolerance of Rio Grande cutthroat trout, this research will help us determine the level of risk that increased water temperatures pose to this species.

Marilyn Myers, Lead Biologist for Rio Grande cutthroat trout, Ecological Services Field Office, Albuquerque, NM (Above) Rio Grande cutthroat trout caught during population sampling on the Rio Santa Barbara in New Mexico. Photo: Yvette Paroz / New Mexico Department of Game and Fish

10 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Our Committed Response

In our Strategic Plan, we commit to creating an informed, credible address the impacts that climate change climate change leadership and management capability that will implement is already having or will have on fish, wildlife and habitats. the plan in a collaborative and scientifically sound manner. We will take bold actions, expressed as Seven Bold Commitments, that we believe will help to The Directorate and the Washington shape the conservation community’s response to the impacts of this global Office must lead the way by recognizing the crisis nature of climate change and environmental scourge on fish, wildlife and habitats. We will employ three seeking the resources needed to address progressive strategies — Adaptation, Mitigation, and Engagement — it; by making difficult choices about Service program priorities and in carrying out our strategic goals and objectives. Through this cohesive, budgets that will guide and define our integrated response, we will fulfill our commitment to the American people activities; and by calling upon every and take our appropriate role within the conservation community in employee to get appropriately involved in our adaptation, mitigation, and addressing the challenges presented by accelerating climate change. engagement strategies.

Regional leaders and employees must Leadership and Management and implementation; landscape lead the way by stepping down national conservation design, delivery, and guidance and plans to the field, We anticipate that within the next few evaluation; internal and external facilitating the feedback loop between years, the U.S. Congress and the Federal partnership development; Congressional national leadership and the field, Government will make political decisions assistance; engagement and ensuring that resources to accomplish and policies relative to climate change communication; and science direction. work on the ground reach those who that will have enormous significance need them, and removing any barriers for 21st century conservation of fish Accomplishing our mission in an era of to success. and wildlife and their habitats. To help accelerated climate change will require shape these decisions and policies, the a fundamental rethinking of how we in Project leaders and field employees must Service must already have in place at the Service do business in the coming lead the way by ground-truthing the national and regional levels a climate decades, including how we define leaders our efforts, implementing our change leadership and management and leadership and how we manage and strategies, monitoring our results, capability that can provide a credible deliver our conservation activities. and recommending new approaches and cohesive approach to the issue. as necessary. Our National Climate Team and eight The exercise of leadership will not be Regional Climate Teams, operating limited to the Directorate or the National All employees must lead the way by under the guidance of our Directorate and Regional Climate Teams; it must participating in the creation of new and its National Science Applications permeate all levels of the Service. The climate change partnerships, and by Executive Team, will help us establish crisis of a changing climate is unlike any working with others to find new and that capability and credibility. other we have faced in world history. innovative means for incorporating Climate change is not the result of the climate change considerations into our The National Climate Team will have actions of the few that are impacting day-to-day activities. representation from Service regions the many; it is the direct result of the and programs; and the Regional activities of each one of us as we live and Climate change leadership will function Climate Teams will be made up of both work in the modern world. In a crisis of in much the same way as our Strategic Regional Office and field employees. this magnitude and scope, we must each Habitat Conservation approach — Together, these teams will provide input take leadership in our own sphere of it will be more iterative than hierarchical, to the development of national climate influence to make the changes that will with Service leaders at each level making change policies and guidance; and eliminate or reduce the causative factors indispensable and ongoing contributions provide leadership and direction in the of climate change. As Service employees, as they operate in constellation with management of the Service’s climate we each have the added responsibility one another. change activities, including budget and of taking leadership within our performance; policy development professional spheres of influence to

Our Committed Response / 11 Our Committed Response

Climate Change Entrepreneurs Climate Change Implicated in the Mystery of the Dying Moose As a Service, we will approach the management and delivery of our No visit to northern Minnesota is conservation activities with a new spirit complete without seeing a of entrepreneurship, which we define as “the process of identifying, evaluating, moose. So you can imagine our and seizing an opportunity and bringing concern here at Agassiz National together the resources necessary Wildlife Refuge when the moose for success.” As climate change population dropped dramatically entrepreneurs, we will learn and embrace in a few years’ time. The Refuge new conservation approaches that lead was once home to 250 to 400 to better results for fish and wildlife. moose. Today, it is estimated that We will face hard facts, and we will less than 40 remain on Agassiz. redirect our priorities and make difficult budget decisions as those facts dictate. The decline in population on the We will hold ourselves accountable, Refuge was part of a regional formally monitoring and evaluating decline in Northwest Minnesota. the effectiveness of our efforts as we This population fell from a peak of 4,000 animals in 1984 to a low of about 85 in 2007. A implement our Strategic Plan and our 5-Year Action Plan. We will seek outside, research study initiated in 1985 with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources independent reviews of our climate and support from citizens, landowners, and volunteers concluded that climatic changes, change efforts after 3 years. We will combined with increased deer numbers and parasitic transmission rates, may have rendered recognize and reward Service employees, Northwest Minnesota inhospitable to moose. Winter and summer temperatures in the past programs, or offices that demonstrate 41 years have increased by about 12°F and 4°F, respectively. The study showed that moose entrepreneurship by taking substantive declines often occurred the year after summers with higher mean temperatures. Moose have actions on climate change adaptation, temperature thresholds that, when exceeded, require them to expend energy to keep cool. mitigation, or engagement. The data indicates that warmer temperatures may have contributed to heat stress, which in Leading Through Action turn accentuated the animals’ already poor body condition from parasite-induced chronic malnutrition. The bottom line: Until the climatic factors that are making the moose range As a Service, we willingly accept the shrink are reversed, we will probably see fewer moose in Northwest Minnesota. opportunity to be a leader on climate change within the fish and wildlife Maggie Anderson, Manager, Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge, Middle River, MN conservation community, recognizing that this leadership will be demonstrated (Above) Bull moose. Photo: Beth Silverhus through actions, not words. We will show leadership by working with States, Tribes, and others to effectively Strategic Plan, and that reflects our represent fish and wildlife conservation climate change principles for addressing interests in discussions relating to this conservation challenge. We will play national climate policy and legislation. a key role in galvanizing governments, We will also work with the conservation organizations, businesses and industry to community to help create climate change collaborate in developing a National Fish legislation that incorporates wildlife and Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy adaptation strategies, as outlined in our and partnering in its implementation.

12 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Our Committed Response

Climate change is not a new mission; it is

Conservation Through Collaboration the lens through which Seven Bold Commitments As a conservation leader, the Service we must accomplish recognizes that the crisis of climate We will fulfill our leadership role as the change also opens up great opportunities the mission we principal national agency through which for those of us committed to the the Federal Government carries out its sustainability of our nation’s fish and already have. fish, wildlife, and habitat conservation wildlife resources. This crisis is an mission for the American public by opportunity to expand and strengthen committing to seven bold undertakings our partnerships in ways that will new resources that we need, reprioritize that we believe are essential to our inevitably help us to more effectively and reallocate the resources we have, success in effectively responding to the address not just this threat to the and leverage our collective resources threats posed by climate change. As a future of fish and wildlife but all other by working in partnerships, internally Service, we will: threats, such as unsustainable land-use and externally. Our greatest certainty practices, degradation of water quality of receiving additional resources is 1. Establish new, shared scientific and and quantity, and invasive species. It is to demonstrate leadership on climate technical capacity within the conservation an opportunity to for us to “take it to the change by assembling our best talent community in the form of Regional next level” scientifically by building an and aligning our present resources and Climate Science Partnerships to acquire unequalled network of shared scientific priorities in response to this challenge. and translate climate change information capacity, capability and knowledge that Our nation is at a turning point in into knowledge that together we can we can draw upon in every decision we regard to climate change, and we have apply to better predict, understand and make. It is an opportunity to engage the opportunity and the responsibility address the effects of climate change the public as never before in facing the to help tip the balance in favor of on fish, wildlife and their habitats at all fact that our actions, individually and aggressive action. spatial scales. collectively, have implications for the future of fish, wildlife, people, and the Given the magnitude of the threat posed 2. Establish Landscape Conservation planet. The crisis of climate change is, by climate change to life as we know it, Cooperatives that enable members of the in the final analysis, an unparalleled we cannot afford to think small or be held conservation community to plan, design opportunity to bring people together, back by our fears or concerns. All great and deliver conservation in ways that nationally and internationally, to solve a achievements in human history have integrate local, State, Tribal, regional, world problem, not through conflict but occurred within the context of daunting national and international efforts and through collaboration. challenges and have been accomplished resources, with our 150 million-acre by people with vision who were willing National Wildlife Refuge System playing We acknowledge that this Strategic Plan to move forward without having all the a role in ensuring habitat connectivity and its accompanying 5-Year Action Plan answers and resources they would have and conserving key landscapes and call upon Service employees to engage desired. Our National Wildlife Refuge populations of fish and wildlife. in many new teams, partnerships, and System, a 150-million-acre network of assessments. We take as a given that lands and waters spread from “sea to 3. Develop new organizational and it is the responsibility of leadership shining sea,” is a sterling example of managerial processes and procedures at each level in the Service to pursue what can happen when even one person that enable the Service to evaluate its and make available to employees the with courage and vision is willing to stand actions, decisions, and expenditures resources, time, training, and tools to in the breach for wildlife and call the through the lens of climate change and accomplish our mission. It is worth nation’s attention to the threat at hand. that unite us across our programs in noting that climate change is not a new This is our moment, as individuals and a shared commitment to address the mission; it is the lens through which we as a Service, to rise to the threat posed effects of climate change on fish and must accomplish the mission we already by climate change. If we succeed, we will wildlife and their habitats. have. As we address climate change in have done our duty. If we fail, it will not carrying out that mission, we will seek be said of us that we were afraid to try.

Our Committed Response / 13 Our Committed Response

4. Use our informational, educational, Three Progressive Strategies: Adaptation training, and outreach capabilities to Adaptation, Mitigation, Adaptation is defined by the IPCC as engage our employees, our conservation “an adjustment in natural or human partners, business and industry, Engagement systems in response to actual or government and non-government expected climatic stimuli or their organizations, the public, and other Our Strategic Plan’s goals, objectives, effects, which moderates harm or internal and external audiences in and actions are positioned under three exploits beneficial opportunities.” a dialogue about the consequences major strategies that correspond For the Service, adaptation is planned, of climate change; and inspire their with the Service’s mission. These science-based management actions, innovative actions to combat its effects strategies are: including regulatory and policy changes, on fish, wildlife, habitats, and people. Adaptation: Minimizing the impact of that we take to help reduce the impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, and 5. Become carbon neutral as an agency climate change on fish and wildlife their habitats. Adaptation forms the by Year 2020 and encourage other through the application of cutting-edge core of the Service’s response to climate organizations to do the same. science in managing species and habitats. change and is the centerpiece of our Strategic Plan. 6. Apply Strategic Habitat Conservation8 Mitigation: Reducing levels of greenhouse as the Service’s framework for landscape gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Our principal approach to fish and conservation. Engagement: Joining forces with others wildlife adaptation will involve the strategic conservation of terrestrial, 7. Inspire and lead the conservation to seek solutions to the challenges and freshwater, and marine habitats within community in creating and implementing threats to fish and wildlife conservation sustainable landscapes to achieve the a shared national vision for addressing posed by climate change. fundamental goal of conserving target climate change by: populations of species or suites of species • Facilitating development of a National and the ecological functions that sustain Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation Vision without action them. We have termed this strategic Strategy that would be our shared approach to achieving our landscape blueprint to guide wildlife is merely a dream. conservation objectives Strategic adaptation partnerships over the Habitat Conservation, or SHC. next 50 – 100 years; Action without vision SHC is an explicit, adaptive approach • Creating a National Biological Inventory just passes the time. to conservation. It takes as a given and Monitoring Partnership that that effective conservation always facilitates a more strategic and cohesive Vision with action can necessitates that we answer a few basic use of the conservation community’s questions and that the same is true for monitoring resources. The Partnership change the world. SHC: First, what are our goals? What would generate empirical data needed healthy populations of species do we Joel Barker, living American scholar and to track climate change effects on the seek to conserve, and what specifically distribution and abundance of fish, futurist who was the first to popularize the concept of paradigm shifts in the corporate world are our targets? Second, how can wildlife and their habitats; model we develop a conservation design to predicted population and habitat meet these goals? Third, how will we change; and help us determine if we deliver this conservation approach? are achieving our goals; Fourth, what sorts of monitoring will • Organizing a National Climate be needed to determine whether we’ve Change Forum where members of been successful or whether we need to the conservation community can adapt our strategies? Fifth, what new exchange ideas and knowledge, scientific research do we need to meet network, and build the relationships our conservation objectives? that will ensure our success in addressing climate change.

14 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Our Committed Response

These ideas are not new; they are key In adopting the SHC framework to components of any adaptive management address climate change impacts, the Conserving and Managing Apache or landscape-scale conservation strategy. Service acknowledges that it needs a Trout in a Warmer, Drier Southwest Distilled, they are the five elements of structured, objective-driven process for Strategic Habitat Conservation: biological planning and conservation design; predictive models for managed gical Plan ecosystems, especially models that Biolo ning acknowledge uncertainties and challenge our decisions; monitoring to improve A s h our understanding and management; g su rc n m ea i pt es r ion-based R and effective ways of delivering o t C i o n conservation actions on the ground n o s

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O change adaptation for fish and wildlife Southwest may be vulnerable due to resources (based on Millar et al. 2007): climate change. What will this mean for resistance, resilience, response and C the conservation and recovery of Apache ons ery ervation Deliv realignment. trout? Climate models for the Southwest Resistance predict a continuing increase in drought Element 1: Biological Planning: and flood severity, warmer air and water Set targets/goals Traditional and current approaches to conservation have been directed temperatures, less precipitation, and more Element 2: Conservation Design: primarily toward maintaining current water loss through plant transpiration Develop a plan to meet the targets/goals or restoring historic conditions. In many and ground evaporation, as well as an cases, maintaining or restoring these increase in events such as wildfire and Element 3: Conservation Delivery: conditions means working against the extreme drought. Warming trends may Implement the plan effects of climate change as they occur alter seasonal river flows, making them on the landscape. Resistance adaptation higher during winter and lower during options seek to manage fish and wildlife Element 4: Outcome-based Monitoring summer. Less snowfall and more rain during and Adaptive Management: Measure resources “to resist the influence of winter may result in earlier spring runoff success and improve results climate change or to forestall undesired effects of change.”10 Resistance (an important cue for the spring-spawning Element 5: Assumption-Based Research: actions will be most effective when the Apache trout). Post-wildfire flooding can Increase knowledge and understanding magnitude of climate change is small; or, eliminate populations and can make streams through iteration (repetitive looping) when the magnitude is greater, “to save uninhabitable for years. We are working native species and habitats for the short of all five elements in conjunction with with our partners to identify strategies to one another. term — perhaps a few decades — until other adaptation options are found.”11 address these new threats through habitat Resisting climate changes may protection, restoration to increase habitat require intensive management action, resiliency, and monitoring. Understanding and accelerating effort and greater how climate change may influence habitat investments over time. It also requires for Apache trout will be critical for effective recognition that these efforts may fail management and recovery of this species. as cumulative change in conditions may be so substantial that resistance is no Jeremy Voeltz, Lead Biologist, Apache Trout longer possible.10 Recovery Program, Pinetop, AZ Apache trout taken from Arizona creek Photo: Jeremy Voeltz / u s f w s

Our Committed Response / 15 Our Committed Response

Resilience composition, and changing disturbance We must be explicit and strategic Resilience is the ability of a natural regimes…to encourage gradual about which adaptation approach we system to return to a desired condition adaptation and transition to inevitable will take in a given situation because after disturbance, either naturally change, and thereby avoid rapid an inappropriate response or a series or with management assistance. threshold or catastrophic conversion that of inconsistent responses can result 10 Resilience adaptation options, then, may occur otherwise.” in large expenditures of time, energy, and resources with questionable or are management actions that improve Realignment the capacity of ecosystems to return to insufficient outcomes. In some situations, desired conditions after disturbance. Restoration is a frequently recommended our response to climate change will be Fostering resilience is probably the management approach for ecosystems to implement resistance adaptation most frequently suggested approach already significantly disturbed. When measures, as these measures will be to adaptation found in climate change the goal of that restoration is to realign sufficient to maintain desired conditions literature.10 Management practices a system to expected future conditions in the face of ongoing climate change. that facilitate resilience are similar to rather than return it to historical In other situations, we will first those used to resist change (e.g., habitat conditions, realignment adaptation implement resistance and/or resilience 10 restoration, habitat management with options are used. According to Choi adaptation measures to maintain fire or through invasive removal), but (2007), a “future-oriented restoration current or historical conditions for as are usually applied more broadly and should (1) establish the ecosystems that long as possible, and then transition are specifically aimed at coping with are able to sustain in the future, not the to response adaptation measures as disturbance.10 Maintaining or improving past, environment; (2) have multiple our capacity to predict and manage habitat or ecosystem resilience may alternative goals and trajectories for future conditions grows. In still other become more difficult and require more unpredictable endpoints; (3) focus on situations, our certainty regarding future intensive management as changes rehabilitation of ecosystem functions landscape conditions will be adequate in climate accumulate over time.10 rather than re-composition of species to allow us to proceed immediately with Resilience adaptation does not facilitate or cosmetics of landscape surface; response adaptation. For some degraded the transition to new conditions that are and (4) acknowledge its identity as ecosystems we will restore current likely to result from climate change.11 a ‘value-laden’ applied science within or historical conditions to build and Thus, some authorities indicate that an economically and socially acceptable maintain resilience, while for others we 12 resilience options are best undertaken framework.” will implement realignment measures in projects that are short term or under to move the systems toward anticipated ecosystem conditions that are relatively Adaptation approaches to climate change future conditions. Our decisions about insensitive to climate change effects.10 can be implemented in a reactive manner which adaptation approaches to use or an anticipatory manner. The IPCC will be based on where we stand as Response defines reactive adaptation as “adaptation a conservation community in terms Another approach to climate change that takes place after impacts of climate of climate change knowledge and is to manage toward future, and often change have been observed,” whereas understanding, management technologies less certain, landscape conditions by anticipatory adaptation is “adaptation that and techniques, and policy constraints predicting and working with the effects takes place before impacts of climate and opportunities. We will practice of climate change. Response adaptation change are observed (also referred to adaptive management where possible, options facilitate the transition of as proactive adaptation).” Historically, and we will apply other techniques when ecosystems from current, natural states climate change adaptation by human circumstances dictate. Over time, we will to new conditions brought about by a societies has been reactive, as is all increase the certainty of our collective changing climate. Response management biological adaptation in an evolutionary understanding and actions in regard to actions “mimic, assist or enable ongoing sense. As our understanding of climate climate change impacts. natural adaptive processes, such change and its effects on ecosystems as species dispersal and migration, increases and uncertainty decreases, we population mortality and colonization, anticipate implementing increasingly changes in community/ecosystem more anticipatory adaptation approaches.

16 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Our Committed Response

Mitigation basically the process by which CO2 from and purchases and acquisitions so that the atmosphere is taken up by plants we become carbon neutral by 2020. Mitigation is defined by the IPCC through photosynthesis and stored as Our success in pursuing and achieving as “human intervention to reduce carbon in biomass (e.g., tree trunks and carbon neutrality will help us to model the sources or enhance the sinksj of roots) or stored as organic carbon in appropriate organizational behaviors greenhouse gases.” Mitigation involves soils. Sequestering carbon in vegetation, and to participate with the conservation reducing our carbon footprint by using such as bottomland hardwood forests, community in catalyzing action to reduce less energy, reducing our consumption, can often restore or improve habitat and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. and appropriately altering our land- directly benefit fish and wildlife. In addition, we expect our mitigation management practices, such as wildlife successes to influence local, regional, food production. Our goal is to achieve We will be aggressive in sequestering national, and international land-use carbon neutrality as an organization by carbon and using best practices to and energy policies and actions and the Year 2020. manage our lands, meet our stewardship to further reduce greenhouse gas responsibilities, and manage our emissions, thereby reducing the impacts Mitigation is also achieved through facilities, vehicles and vessels, travel, of climate change on fish, wildlife, and biological carbon sequestration, which is their habitats.

Engagement Climate Change and SHC’s Five Elements Engagement is reaching out to Service Climate change is integrally tied to each of SHC’s five elements. For example, setting employees; our local, national and realistic and achievable biological targets requires careful consideration of the effects of international partners in the public and climate change; otherwise, we could unwittingly set species goals that rely on locations private sectors; our key constituencies and stakeholders; and everyday that won’t be available as habitat in the future. The impacts from sea level rise provide a citizens to join forces with them in clear example: We anticipate that some of today’s valuable coastal habitat will be inundated seeking solutions to the challenges and in the years ahead and, thus, unable to support certain wildlife species. The task before threats to fish and wildlife conservation us is to anticipate these changes and incorporate them into our goal-setting, as well as posed by climate change. By building our conservation planning and delivery. We must ask ourselves such fundamental knowledge and sharing information questions as, “Are we conserving the right places based on the changes we anticipate in a comprehensive and integrated from climate change?” way, the Service and our partners and stakeholders will increase our Climate change also makes monitoring and adaptive management more important than understanding of global climate change ever. The predicted impacts from climate change are wide-ranging and their timing is highly impacts and use our combined expertise uncertain. We need monitoring to understand the rate and magnitude of climate change; and creativity to help wildlife resources but more importantly, we need monitoring to understand the effectiveness of our strategies in adapt in a climate-changed world. the face of climate change and other threats. Only then will we be able to effectively modify Through engagement, Service employees will be better equipped to address our strategies over time. climate change in their day-to-day Climate change also must be squarely factored into our research efforts. We must challenge responsibilities; America’s citizens will be ourselves to envision a future environmental baseline that takes into account the changes in inspired to participate in a new era of collaborative environmental the landscape caused by climate change and other ecosystem change-drivers, such as land stewardship, working to reduce their use practices. Integrating climate change into our research priorities will help us to create carbon footprints and supporting wildlife conservation strategies that stand the test of time. adaptation efforts; and leaders at the local, regional, national, and international Paul Souza, Field Supervisor, South Florida Ecological Services Field Office, Vero Beach, FL levels will be motivated to craft and support legislation and policy that address climate change and consider its impacts to fish and wildlife.

j Sinks are the removal or sequestration of greenhouse gases.

Our Committed Response / 17 Our Committed Response

Adaptation, Mitigation, Engagement: With regard to mitigation, we will A Balanced Approach begin immediately and work aggressively ...the Service and to reduce our carbon footprint to We will use a progressive, balanced achieve carbon neutrality. Over time, our partners and approach in undertaking adaptation, we anticipate that we will build a strong mitigation and engagement. Goals and mitigation consciousness and track stakeholders will objectives in this plan will be stepped record in our organization; consequently, down to specific actions that will form our mitigation efforts will plateau and increase our our near-term, 5-Year Action Plan for will be maintained at that level for addressing climate change. We will the long term. understanding of progress in a manner that will reflect k increasing certainty about what actions With regard to engagement, we will global climate change we should take and when we should increase our internal efforts immediately take them. so that our employees can acquire the impacts and use our additional knowledge and skills they need We will increase our adaptation efforts to address climate change as a central combined expertise significantly in the near term as we focus of our programs and activities. respond to increasing climate change At the same time, we will increase our and creativity to help impacts. Our initial emphasis will likely external engagement to learn from be on resistance and resilience types others and help build public support wildlife resources of adaptation, as we work to build nationally and internationally for the adapt in a climate- resilience in ecosystems through our Service’s adaptation and mitigation management efforts and, in some cases, activities. In addition, we will encourage changed world. to buy additional time to increase our members of the public to join us in M inette L ayne / flic k r certainty regarding future landscape reducing their carbon footprints. conditions. Over the long term, however, we will work with partners to assemble the technical and institutional capability to increase our response and realignment types of adaptation, particularly as we become better able to anticipate the impacts of climate change. As our expertise and that of our conservation partners grows, and as we learn more about climate change, we will increasingly emphasize anticipatory adaptation.

Global climate change may be disrupting migration patterns of species such as hummingbirds that depend on seasonal cues for their survival.

k Certainty increases when the collective understanding of climate change trajectories in a given area, their impacts on fish and wildlife, and our ability to successfully manage those impacts increases and becomes more accepted, both within the Service and the general public. Increasing certainty within the Service and among our publics and partners is a strategic goal of our research and monitoring programs and our educational endeavors.

18 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Strategic Goals & Objectives

Goals and objectives will turn our strategic vision into action (6) considers adaptation strategies and position the Service as a responsible leader and creative partner in being developed for other sectors (such as agriculture, human health and facilitating wildlife adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, and engagement transportation) so that the strategies with others to address the effects of accelerating climate change on fish and complement one another and minimize conflicts; and wildlife and their habitats. Action items needed to achieve these goals and (7) identifies key ecological processes objectives are included in the appendix document, the 5-Year Action Plan. and methods to conserve priority species and habitats. Adaptation and international governments and organizations to develop the strategy. For the implementation of landscape- The goal is to have a completed strategy Goal 1 scale conservation, the strategy will by the end of 2012, with implementation place particular emphasis on ecological We will work with partners to to begin soon thereafter. A National systems and function; strengthened develop and implement a National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation observational systems; model-based Strategy is likely to consist of an Fish and Wildlife Climate projections; species-habitat linkages; agreement that identifies and defines risk assessment; and active and passive Adaptation Strategy. integrated approaches to maintaining adaptive management. The strategy key terrestrial, freshwater and marine will include a national strategy for Objective 1.1: Inspire, Organize, and Carry ecosystems and functions needed to monitoring species and habitats that sustain fish and wildlife resources in Out a Collaborative Process that Brings are most vulnerable to climate change. the face of accelerating climate change. It will also outline appropriate scientific Together Diverse Interests To Develop a As the strategy is developed and National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation support (including inventory, monitoring, implemented, we will work to ensure research, and modeling) to inform Strategy; and Fully Integrate Resource that it: management decisions; the need for Management Agencies and Organizations (1) embraces the philosophy that and importance of collaboration and from Around the Country and Internationally maintaining healthy fish and wildlife interdependency; and the financial into the Process. populations and ecosystem sustainability resources (including grants, appropriated are interdependent goals; funds, and private contributions) needed Climate legislation proposed in recent to implement decisions. sessions of Congress includes provisions (2) adopts landscape-scale approaches for a national strategy for fish and that integrate science and management; A National Fish and Wildlife Climate wildlife adaptation to climate change. (3) recognizes appropriate roles for all Adaptation Strategy will cover the We view this strategy as the most four adaptation approaches (resistance, length and breadth of the United consequential and crucial conservation resilience, response, realignment); States, from the Pacific Islands to the endeavor of the 21st century. The eastern seaboard and from Alaska to Department of the Interior, with the (4) reflects the uncertainty associated the Caribbean; and will extend beyond Service as lead agency, and the Council with adaptation planning, but also our borders to encompass habitats used on Environmental Quality are leading acknowledges that, over time, we will by cross-border species (e.g., those the effort to develop a National Fish and be better able to be anticipatory and shared with Canada and Mexico)l, as Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy. proactive in our approach to adaptation; well as areas in the Western Hemisphere We are committed to an intensive, (5) addresses species and habitat associated with many migratory 3-year collaboration with Federal, State, species (e.g., Central and South Tribal, and local governments, private priorities that are based on scientific assessments and risk-based predictions American wintering areas of migratory landowners, conservation organizations, m of vulnerability to changing climate; songbirds) .

l Trans-boundary issues will be addressed through the Canada/Mexico/U.S. Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management (the Trilateral Committee). The Trilateral Committee was established to facilitate and enhance coordination, cooperation, and the development of partnerships among the wildlife agencies of the three countries regarding programs and projects for the conservation and management of species and ecosystems of mutual interest in North America. m Western hemisphere migratory species issues will largely be addressed through the Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative, which seeks to contribute significantly to the conservation of the migratory species of the hemisphere by strengthening communication and cooperation among nations, international conventions, and civil society; and by expanding constituencies and political support.

Strategic Goals & Objectives / 19 Strategic Goals & Objectives

In short, a National Fish and Wildlife the government, conservation, and Objective 2.2: Develop Landscape Adaptation Strategy will be our shared academic communities, a mechanism blueprint to guide wildlife adaptation is needed that will allow them to Conservation Cooperatives to Acquire partnerships over the next 50 – 100 years. effectively collaborate with one another Biological Planning and Conservation The strategy will enable the national on a regional basis, e.g., through virtual Design Expertise and international conservation networks. The U.S. Geological Survey communities to harness collective is well positioned to coordinate such To promote wildlife adaptation to expertise, authorities, and abilities to Regional Climate Science Partnerships accelerating climate change, we need the define and prioritize a shared set of through its Climate Change and Wildlife capability to develop, test, implement, conservation goals and objectives, as Science Center and the Departmental and monitor conservation strategies well as to prescribe a plan of integrated, Climate Science Centers that are being that will be responsive to the dynamic concerted action. established pursuant to Secretarial landscape changes resulting from climate Order 3289. We will help the U.S. change. These strategies must be Geological Survey and the Department model-based and spatially explicit, Goal 2 with the development of these Regional allowing us to effectively apply our We will develop long-term capacity Climate Science Partnerships to support emerging climate knowledge to predict for biological planning and a broad spectrum of natural resource habitat and species changes and to management activities. design our conservation actions to conservation design and apply target impacts. To accomplish this, it to drive conservation at broad, Climate science and modeling we will develop biological planning, landscape scales. expertise will: conservation design, and research and monitoring expertise across the (1) make global climate model outputs Service and among diverse partners, Objective 2.1: Access Regional Climate usable at multiple planning scales as defined in our Strategic Habitat Science and Modeling Expertise through through downscaling approaches (either Conservation framework. Regional Climate Science Partnerships dynamical or statistical); We will work interdependently with Successful conservation strategies will (2) integrate global or downscaled partners to develop this expertise require an understanding of climate climate model outputs with ecological within Landscape Conservation change, the ability to predict how that and land-use change models to project Cooperatives (LCCs). LCCs are formal change will affect fish and wildlife at future changes in the distribution and partnerships between Federal and multiple scales, and the skill to translate abundance of fish and wildlife resulting State agencies, Tribes, non-government this understanding into useful tools for from climate and land-use changes; organizations, universities and others landscape-level conservation design. (3) identify and predict climate change to share conservation science capacity We need access to experts in climate thresholds for key species and habitats; (including staff) to address landscape- science and modeling who have the scale stressors, including habitat capability of putting climate data and (4) facilitate research to address key fragmentation, genetic isolation, projections into forms that are useful uncertainties in applying climate change spread of invasive species, and water for biological planning and conservation science to fish and wildlife conservation; scarcity, all of which are accelerated by design. This expertise can be found and climate change. LCCs are envisioned within such organizations as the U.S. (5) support regional or local climate as the centerpiece of the Service’s Geological Survey, the National Oceanic monitoring programs. Currently, this and the Department’s (via Secretarial and Atmospheric Administration, expertise is not readily available to Order 3289) informed management universities, and some non-governmental managers. Without it, they cannot response to climate change impacts on organizations. Because these experts develop successful adaptation strategies natural resources. tend to be widely dispersed across for fish and wildlife.

20 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Strategic Goals & Objectives

The precise organizational structure With the expertise available through Objective 2.3: Develop Expertise In and for LCCs will vary based on the shared LCCs, we and our partners will Conduct Adaptation Planning for Key Species needs of cooperators. Rather than create assemble climate, land-cover, land-use, a new conservation infrastructure from hydrological and other relevant data and Habitats the ground up, LCCs will build upon the in spatially explicit contexts to develop Adaptation planning will fall within the science and the management priorities explicit, predictive and measurable purview of LCCs, as well as individual of existing partnerships, such as fish biological objectives to guide landscape- Service programs. In addition to those habitat partnerships, migratory bird scale conservation design. We will use generally used in SHC, new tools will be joint ventures and flyway councils, as results from population-habitat and required for development of successful well as species- and geographic-based ecological models, statistical analyses, climate change adaptation plans. These partnerships. All LCCs will be guided and geographic information systems tools will include species and habitat by a steering committee composed to design conservation strategies that vulnerability assessments; planning of representatives of partner drive conservation delivery at landscape and decision-support tools, such as organizations, and all will be focused scales. We will develop scientifically scenario planning; the use of high- on defined geographic areas. The valid, collaborative population and resolution climate projections to drive Service has developed an Interim habitat monitoring programs that are important ecological and biophysical Geographic Framework that will form linked to and support agency decision- response models; risk assessments; the basis for the nationwide network making processes. We will develop and green infrastructure planning. To of LCCs. Ultimately, 21 LCCs will be and facilitate research projects facilitate adaptation planning within established. focused explicitly on the documented and across LCCs, we will assemble assumptions and uncertainties available information and provide resulting from biological planning and conservation design activities.

Interim Geographic Framework for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

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recommendations on best planning Objective 2.4: Incorporate Climate Change in Objective 2.5: Provide Requested Support to practices. This may involve providing a variety of acceptable options to use in Service Activities and Decisions State and Tribal Managers to Address Climate Change Issues that Affect Fish and Wildlife different situations and the pros and cons We will consider actual and projected Service Trust Resources of each; and it will include identifying any climate change impacts to fish crucial gaps in data, capacity, or training and wildlife populations and their that need to be addressed. Many States are already working habitats in Service planning, decision- to address climate change in their making, consultation and evaluation, One fundamental step in adaptation State Wildlife Action Plans and other management, and restoration efforts. management plans, and Tribes are planning is determining which species Planning efforts will include resource and habitats are most vulnerable to likely to undertake similar measures planning (e.g., recovery plans, habitat in their resource management accelerating climate change (“climate- conservation plans, fish habitat vulnerable”). As previously defined, plans. When requested, we will work plans, migratory bird plans, natural collaboratively with States and Tribes to vulnerability is a function of the resource damage restoration plans, sensitivity of a particular system to share information and to support their and Comprehensive Conservation efforts to incorporate climate change climate changes, its exposure to those Plans); operations planning (e.g., changes, and its capacity to adapt considerations into their fish and wildlife facility maintenance, construction, and management plans and programs. to those changes. We will work with equipment and fleet management); and partners and with regional and field administrative planning (e.g., workforce staff to develop methodologies to assess planning, and information technology Objective 2.6: Evaluate Fish and Wildlife species and habitat vulnerability and management planning). Decision-making Service Laws, Regulations, and Policies to test and apply these methodologies includes Endangered Species Act listing to Identify Barriers To and Opportunities on the ground. Climate vulnerability decisions and injurious wildlife listing for Successful Implementation of assessments will be used in conjunction decisions. Consultation and evaluation Climate Change Actions with analyses of non-climate stressors includes Endangered Species Act Section (such as water quantity and quality 7 consultations and related documents, We will review the Service’s laws, for aquatic species, spread of invasive such as biological opinions, Fish and regulations, and policies to determine species, impacts of fire regimes, exposure Wildlife Coordination Act evaluations, what, if any, changes may be necessary to contaminants, and changes in land and environmental assessments. We will to support effective adaptation and use) to assess the overall vulnerability of prepare guidance that can be used by our mitigation responses to climate change. species and habitats. various programs in their assessment of We will focus particularly on determining climate change impacts. the need to develop new policies (e.g., for managed relocationn) and necessary We will review all Service grant revisions of existing policies (e.g., what programs and modify grant criteria, constitutes native, invasive, or exotic as necessary and legally allowable, to species). In addition, we will identify direct more funding to projects that new (or revisions to) laws, regulations, specifically address climate change policies, guidance, and other protocols adaptation, mitigation, or engagement. necessary to provide incentives or Where modification of grant criteria is eliminate barriers to our efforts to not legally allowable, such as Pittman- mitigate climate change by reducing our Robertson and Dingell-Johnson grants carbon footprint. made through the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration programs, we will work with partners to encourage grantees to consider climate change initiatives.

n Managed relocation is the intentional translocation of a species with limited dispersal ability to a site or sites where it currently does not occur or has not been known to occur in recent history and where the probability of persistence in the face of climate change is predicted to be higher.

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Goal 3 species and designation or revision of boundaries; or other conservation We will plan and deliver landscape critical habitat under the Endangered entities, such as land facetsp 14. Through Species Act; help us to revise recovery conservation designs developed by LCCs, conservation actions that support efforts for already-listed species; and we will work with partners to identify climate change adaptations by help us to revise various species-related needed habitat protection and landscape- fish and wildlife of ecological and conservation plans, such as the North scale habitat linkages and corridors. societal significance. American Waterbird Conservation By joining the habitat protection and Plan. LCCs will be largely responsible management capacities of the Service for identifying priority species through (e.g., National Wildlife Refuge System, Our long-term approach to climate vulnerability assessments; but other Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, change will be guided by a National programs, such as Endangered Species Endangered Species Program, National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation and Migratory Birds, will also be involved Fish Habitat Plan, National Fish Passage Strategy, a coordinated, multi- through their program activities. For Program, Neotropical Migratory Bird organization plan for landscape example, the Migratory Birds Program Conservation Act, and North American conservation across the United States, was instrumental in producing The State Wetlands Conservation Act) with those portions of Mexico and Canada, and of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate of our partners, we will help build certain, more distant areas within Change, which has helped focus attention this connectivity within and between Central and South America. on climate-vulnerable bird species. landscapes. We anticipate that a strategy will be We must also strive to maintain completed by the end of 2012. In the Objective 3.2: Promote Habitat ecosystem integrity and resilience by meantime, there are many on-the-ground Connectivity and Integrity developing new and innovative ways of efforts we can take with our partners to protecting and restoring key ecological begin the process of facilitating fish and Climate change is contributing to the processes to sustain fish and wildlife. wildlife adaptation to climate change. As loss, degradation, and fragmentation of Processes such as pollination, seed we implement these near-term efforts, current habitats and will likely create dispersal, nutrient cycling, natural we will evaluate success and failure novel habitats as species redistribute disturbance cycles, predator-prey and use this information to inform themselves across the landscape. In relations, and others must be part of the development and implementation of the addition, climate change is interacting natural landscapes we seek to maintain national strategy. with non-climate stressors — such or restore. These processes are likely to as land-use change, wildfire, urban function more optimally in landscapes and suburban development, and Objective 3.1: Take Conservation Action for composed of large habitat blocks agriculture — to fragment habitats Climate-Vulnerable Species connected by well-placed corridors. at ever-increasing rates. Protecting We will work with partners to identify and restoring contiguous blocks of We will rely on results of our how key ecological processes are likely unfragmented habitat; and using linkages vulnerability assessments and on our to be affected by climate change, and corridors to enhance connectivity field expertise in focusing our efforts and to determine how management between habitat blocks (in particular, to protect species that are particularly actions might help maintain or restore protected areas such as National vulnerable to climate change, such key ecological processes. We will also Wildlife Refuges) will likely facilitate the as sea ice-dependent or sky islando conduct research (see Objective 4.4) movement of fish and wildlife species animal species and a number of rare and create demonstration projects, responding to climate change. Novel and/or endemic plant species. Timely particularly on Land Management conservation measures that address identification of climate-vulnerable Research and Demonstration areasq the dynamic nature of climate change species and habitats is critical, as it on National Wildlife Refuges, to effects on habitat may also be needed13, will allow us to design and implement evaluate management actions designed among them, long-term climate refugia; proactive conservation measures; help to maintain or restore key ecological protected habitat areas with dynamic us to make decisions regarding listing processes.

o Sky islands are isolated ecosystems occurring at high elevations (such as on mountain tops) that show evolutionary tendencies similar to those occurring on islands such as the Galapagos Islands. p Land facets are recurring landscape units with uniform topographic and soil attributes. q Land Management Research and Demonstration areas are places on a small number of our National Wildlife Refuges where new habitat management techniques and approaches are developed, implemented and showcased.

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and allocations to meet human needs mid-Atlantic and Southeast) and the Objective 3.3: Reduce Non-Climate Change for water. As these human adaptations Gulf Coast, are particularly susceptible Ecosystem Stressors are crafted, we will work with partners, to sea level rise, as well as to increasing including water management agencies, intensity and frequency of storms and Successful adaptation strategies for fish to ensure water resources of adequate storm surges. To begin planning for and wildlife will require understanding quantity and quality to support biological future management, we must understand and reducing the combined and objectives for fish and wildlife are the vulnerability of our coastal resources cumulative effects of both climate- incorporated. This will be a critical to sea level rise and storms. We will related and non-climate stressors. issue for our National Wildlife Refuges conduct sea level rise modeling (e.g., Non-climate stressors include land-use and National Fish Hatcheries and our Sea Level Affecting Marshes Modelr) changes (e.g., agricultural conversion, conservation efforts for threatened and for all coastal refuges and expand energy development, urbanization); endangered species, migratory birds, modeling to additional coastal areas, invasive species; unnatural wildfire; and fish and aquatic species. We will as practicable, to determine the contaminants; and wildlife crime. inventory and monitor water quantity vulnerability of these areas. We will Reducing these non-climate stressors and quality, especially relative to work with partners to develop new is a fundamental objective of many National Wildlife Refuges (as described climate-change adaptation strategies for current Service programs and activities; in the Refuge System’s draft Strategic coastal management and restoration. however, in the face of climate change, Plan for Inventories and Monitoring We will implement these strategies as it essential that we and our partners on National Wildlife Refuges: Adapting part of landscape conservation designs be strategic in targeting our efforts to Environmental Change). We will developed by LCCs. National Wildlife where they will do the most good in work to acquire, manage, and protect Refuge planners will use the results conserving what we identify as priority adequate supplies of clean water, and to of vulnerability assessments to design species and landscapes. We can no ensure water management authorities adaptation strategies appropriate for longer afford to simply work to reduce provide adequate in-stream flows to their respective refuges. non-climate stressors on an ad hoc or address priority needs as determined opportunistic basis. Our work must be by vulnerability assessments. We will Marine ecosystems, especially coral targeted to reduce specific stressors work to improve water quality, e.g., by reefs, are among the most biologically that our predictive tools indicate will reducing environmental contaminant diverse ecosystems in the world. Marine be key limiting factors in an overall loads or reducing stream temperatures resources are threatened by upper-ocean adaptation strategy for priority through riparian restoration. warming, sea-ice retreat, sea level rise, species or landscapes. Reducing these ocean acidification, altered freshwater key non-climate stressors will be an distributions, and perhaps even strong important component of the conservation Objective 3.5: Conserve Coastal and storms and altered storm tracks, all due designs for priority landscapes that are Marine Resources to rising levels of atmospheric carbon developed by LCCs. Coastal habitats, including estuaries, dioxide and climate change. We must wetlands (freshwater, brackish, and determine the vulnerability to climate Objective 3.4: Identify and Fill Priority saline), and beaches, are among the change of our marine National Wildlife Freshwater Needs most important habitats for fish and Refuges, National Monuments, other wildlife, including a myriad of migratory protected areas, and other priority Water is the key to life, and climate bird species and many threatened or marine resources as a result of climate change will alter the distribution, endangered species, such as marine change. We will work with partners to abundance, and quality of water by turtles and manatees. As such, a large develop and implement new climate affecting precipitation, air and water number of our National Wildlife Refuges change adaptation strategies for marine temperatures, and snowmelt. Climate are along coastlines. Coastal habitats, management and restoration. change will drive adaptations of our especially those in the East (particularly nation’s water supply infrastructure

r The Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) simulates the dominant processes involved in wetland conversions and shoreline modifications during long-term sea level rise. Map distributions of wetlands are predicted under conditions of accelerated sea level rise, and results are summarized in tabular and graphical form.

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Objective 3.6: Manage Genetic Resources Objective 3.7: Reduce Susceptibility to shared expertise within LCCs; and we will be an objective source of information Diseases, Pathogens, and Pests Conservation genetics helps the Service on how to avoid, minimize, and off-set and its partners better measure and Climate-induced stress will compromise those effects. We will work with industry, assess the taxonomic status and genetic species’ resistance to diseases and pests agencies, and other stakeholders to relationships within and among species and will likely increase mortality. In facilitate siting, construction, operation of fish, wildlife and plants. Genetic addition, changing climate will allow and maintenance of renewable energy variation provides the raw material for pathogens and pests to spread to areas projects that explicitly evaluate and avoid species adaptation and evolutionary where they are currently limited by or otherwise compensate for significant flexibility in response to environmental climate (e.g., by low temperatures in the impacts to fish and wildlife. change. Maintaining genetic diversity winter). Working with our partners and is essential for maintaining healthy, using the existing disease surveillance Objective 3.9: Foster International resilient populations of fish, wildlife and and diagnostic infrastructure, we will Collaboration for Landscape Conservation plants that are more able to cope with improve surveillance and response the stressors of climate change. Often capabilities; improve predictions of To fully succeed in conserving the fish as genetic diversity declines, a species’ climate change impacts on the biology of and wildlife resources for which we have ability to adapt to change decreases and wildlife and vector species; and identify responsibility in the face of accelerating extinction risk increases. Furthermore, and implement management measures to climate change, we must look beyond our when habitat shifts occur, managers can reduce wildlife vulnerabilities to climate borders to the rest of North America, use genetic information to help conserve change and susceptibility to disease, the western hemisphere and, indeed, the the genetic diversity anda variability pathogens, and pests. whole world. We believe that strategic within a species. landscape conservation — landscape Objective 3.8: Address Fish and Wildlife conservation that factors in climate We must increase our capacity to change as well as non-climate Needs in Renewable Energy Development gather, interpret, and use genetic stressors — will be the key to conserving information for the conservation of As wildlife management professionals, needed habitats beyond our borders, climate-vulnerable species. We will we believe that renewable sources of whether for migratory songbirds in strengthen and expand our genetic energy are a key element in mitigating Central America, jaguars along the U.S.- analysis and cryopreservation emissions of greenhouse gases, which Mexican border, tigers in Southeast Asia, capabilities. We will continue to expand are the root cause of the climate crisis or elephants in Africa. We will foster our partnerships with States, zoos, and its consequences for fish and wildlife. international landscape conservation botanical gardens, and other partners to While the expansion of renewable on the North American continent develop other effective ways to manage energy development will contribute to by working through the Trilateral genetic resources of both captive and the nation’s energy needs with lower Committee, the Western Hemisphere wild fish and wildlife populations and to net atmospheric release of greenhouse Migratory Species Initiative, the s build the policy framework and decision gases per unit of energy as compared Wildlife Without Borders regional support needed to determine when and to nonrenewable sources, we recognize programs for Mexico and for Latin how to apply these genetic management that such development will result in America and the Caribbean, and measures in a transparent, responsible, impacts to fish and wildlife. We will the Neotropical Migratory Bird and ethical manner. facilitate balanced renewable energy Conservation Act grants program. development by providing timely and In other regions of the world, we will reliable information on impacts to fish work through our Wildlife Without

and wildlife. We will consider renewable Borders and Migratory Bird programs energy project proposals in the context to promote landscape conservation to of their expected cumulative impacts to reduce climate change effects on priority fish and wildlife populations, applying the species and landscapes.

s Wildlife Without Borders is the overarching title of the Division of International Conservation’s species, regional and global conservation efforts. The Division of International Conservation is a component of the Service’s International Affairs Program.

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Goal 4 We will work with such partners as the We will work with such partners as the We will develop monitoring and U.S. Geological Survey and the National U.S. Geological Survey, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, research partnerships that make to define and implement remote-sensing and the National Aeronautics and Space available complete and objective monitoring programs for key biotic Administration to define and implement information to plan, deliver, resources (e.g., vegetative cover, invasive abiotic remote-sensing monitoring evaluate, and improve actions species spread, wildfire frequency and priorities. We will support existing aerial extent, plant phenology and physical science and remote-sensing that facilitate fish and wildlife primary productivity). We will support monitoring programs that have proven adaptation to accelerating existing remote-sensing monitoring track records and are relevant to climate climate change. programs that have proven track change (e.g., Remote Automated Weather records and are relevant to climate Stations and the Terrestrial Observation change (e.g., Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System). Objective 4.1: Develop a National Biological and Prediction System). Inventory and Monitoring Partnership Objective 4.3: Develop Research and We will incorporate new inventory and Monitoring Capability for Use in Landscape Biological inventory and monitoring are monitoring approaches as necessary and essential tools to understand the status practical to achieve our goals. Conservation and trends of fish and wildlife, as well as to help determine large-scale patterns Monitoring and research are key of ecosystem health and response to Objective 4.2: Promote Abiotic components of the Service’s SHC climate change. To address this need, Monitoring Programs framework. By measuring the effect of we will lead efforts to develop a national, conservation efforts against explicitly Monitoring of abiotic resources and integrated inventory and monitoring predicted outcomes, managers can their change will be a key component partnership to monitor continental learn from both success and failure, of a comprehensive national monitoring changes in key populations and biological thereby increasing the probability of program, particularly for larger diversity. Our efforts will be driven by success in future actions. By identifying landscapes. Within the National Wildlife the inventory and monitoring priorities uncertainties and assumptions in the Refuge System, we will: (1) work developed by LCCs and the National models we use to develop biological with partners to identify key abiotic Wildlife Refuge System, as detailed in objectives, we can prioritize and target resources that should be monitored, and the Refuge System’s draft Strategic key uncertainties and assumptions for assemble key existing abiotic data sets Plan for Inventories and Monitoring research. We will develop appropriate needed by Refuge System managers on National Wildlife Refuges: Adapting research and monitoring capability, for comprehensive conservation to Environmental Change, as well as primarily within LCCs, to ensure that the planning; and (2) complete baseline priorities developed collaboratively adaptation efforts we undertake within hydrogeomorphic analyses at selected among many agencies within a National the SHC framework are evaluated and refuges (see the Refuge System’s Fish and Wildlife Adaptation Strategy. that key uncertainties and assumptions draft Strategic Plan for Inventories We will leverage our efforts with those are addressed through targeted and Monitoring on National Wildlife of existing Federal monitoring programs research. We will provide relevant Refuges: Adapting to Environmental with proven track records and relevance education and training opportunities to Change). to climate change (e.g., the National Service managers and ensure that this Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring research and monitoring component is Program, the Forest Service’s Forest incorporated into all of our landscape Inventory and Analysis Program, and conservation efforts. the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Phenology Network).

26 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Strategic Goals & Objectives Rare Cacti: Is Hotter and Drier Better?

Objective 4.4: Further Develop Mitigation Collaborative Research Partnerships Goal 5 We will enhance existing and develop new collaborative partnerships to We will change our business As the most readily recognized component conduct research related to fish and practices to achieve carbon of arid ecosystems, we intuitively think that wildlife adaptation to climate change. neutrality by the Year 2020. cacti are uniquely adapted to live in the We will enhance our existing research desert and may be able to withstand hotter partnerships at the Federal level, and drier conditions brought on by climate especially with the U.S. Geological Objective 5.1: Assess and Reduce the Carbon change. Based on monitoring information Survey, the National Aeronautics Footprint of the Service’s Facilities, Vehicles, and Space Administration, and the Workforce, and Operations we have collected for several Federally National Oceanic and Atmospheric listed and candidate cacti species in Arizona Administration; with universities and We are committed as an agency to and New Mexico, this may be an incorrect university consortiums (e.g., Cooperative achieving carbon neutrality by the Year assumption. Populations of these cacti have 2020. This will require that we reduce Ecosystem Studies Units); and with been monitored for at least 20 years, with the private sector to design and the energy use and carbon footprint of our buildings, facilities, vehicle each species’ population showing declines implement a climate change research in overall numbers and reduced, or no, program in conjunction with LCCs fleet, workforce, and operations to the reproduction since the 1990s. and Climate Science Centers. We will maximum extent possible. We have established a Carbon Neutral Team develop new research partnerships as What will happen to these cacti species if our needs dictate. to carry out our ongoing efforts, to inventory, monitor, and evaluate our drought conditions continue? Seed banks may be reduced, and seed germination and We have designated areas on National energy usage. By implementing best Wildlife Refuges as sites for long-term, practices such as those identified in seedling survival will likely be reduced. integrated research and monitoring. Service policy, expanding these efforts, Even for established plants, increases These include Research Natural Areas and embarking upon new and innovative in rabbit and rodent predation of cacti (on 97 refuges) and Land Management efforts across the Service, we anticipate that occur during drought may remove success in reducing our carbon footprint and Research Demonstration Areas large, reproductive individual plants from by 5 –10 percent annually between (on eight refuges). We will investigate populations. expanding both these systems to now and 2020. Example strategies are achieve our climate change research and managing our fleet through life-cycle Due to their limited geographic distribution, monitoring goals. The Refuge System’s planning, including provisions in facility these cacti species may not be able to agreements and leases that promote draft Strategic Plan for Inventories disperse into areas where they can persist. and Monitoring on National Wildlife conservation of energy and water, and ensuring that energy-related deferred The management questions before us Refuges: Adapting to Environmental are, “How do we manage for these and Change calls for Research Natural Areas maintenance activities are identified similar species under changing climatic to be distributed among refuges over in the Service Asset Maintenance two strata — areas that are predicted to Management System. We anticipate regimes?” and “Are these species remain the same (i.e., climate refugia) that the reductions achieved, combined candidates for population augmentation and those predicted to have extremely with our carbon sequestration and, in their existing locations or for assisted perhaps, offsets, will lead us to carbon dynamic climatic niches with uncertain colonization — moving them or placing seeds neutrality by 2020. outcomes. Additional Land Management in other areas that may be favorable for their and Research Demonstration Areas could continued existence?” be established in refuges to demonstrate adaptive management approaches Mima Falk, plant ecologist, Phoenix to climate change and/or to serve as Ecological Services Field Office, Tucson, AZ research sites for climate studies. We will direct additional funding, as it becomes (Above) Acuna cactus in bloom. Photo: u s f w s available, to the Land Management and Research Demonstration Areas for climate change research.

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Goal 6 Objective 5.2: Assess and Reduce the Objective 6.2: Develop Standards, Guidelines, Service’s Land Management Carbon Footprint To conserve and restore fish and and Best Management Practices for Biological wildlife habitats at landscape scales Carbon Sequestration The Service’s land-management activities while simultaneously sequestering for wildlife have an associated carbon The Carbon Sequestration Working footprint. To achieve carbon neutrality, atmospheric greenhouse gases, Group will identify scientific approaches, we must assess and reduce this footprint we will build our capacity to standards, guidelines, and best to the maximum extent possible while understand, apply, and share management practices for biological still achieving the Service’s mission. carbon sequestration activities to achieve Because our understanding of the biological carbon sequestration optimal fish and wildlife habitat through carbon footprint associated with our land science; and we will work with strict requirements for use of native management activities is incomplete, the partners to implement carbon vegetation. This information will be first step will be to inventory, monitor, sequestration projects in strategic shared domestically and internationally and evaluate our emissions of greenhouse to encourage large-scale partnerships gases through these activities. We will locations. in science-driven, biological carbon then be in a position to consider how sequestration that supports fish and to reduce emissions while we achieve Objective 6.1: Develop Biological Carbon wildlife adaptation to climate change. the Service’s highest land-management Sequestration Expertise priorities, a process that will involve Objective 6.3: Integrate Biological Carbon evaluating green energy alternatives, Biological carbon sequestration has the Sequestration Activities into Landscape considering trade-offs, and making potential to simultaneously accomplish Conservation Approaches difficult choices. both adaptation and mitigation objectives. For example, by reforesting We will work to ensure that biological a corridor between two protected areas Objective 5.3: Offset the Remaining carbon sequestration activities, whether with an appropriate mix of native trees, Carbon Balance initiated by the Service or others, we not only sequester carbon, we create are implemented within an adaptive, After we minimize the carbon footprint viable habitat as well. When the restored landscape-conservation context. of the Service’s facilities, vehicles, habitat contributes to attainment Applying our SHC framework, including operations, and land-management of explicit population objectives for biological planning and conservation activities, a residual carbon footprint may climate-vulnerable species or species design, on-the-ground delivery, and remain. We will offset our residual carbon assemblages, then we are achieving both research and monitoring to evaluate footprint through carbon sequestration mitigation and adaptation objectives. success, LCCs will help us work with and other measures, such as buying partners to determine where, when, how offsets, to become carbon neutral by the To accomplish this dual vision within much, and what types of habitat should Year 2020. priority landscapes, we will need to be conserved, protected, and enhanced in develop specific expertise in biological a given area to achieve both species and carbon sequestration through a Carbon carbon-sequestration objectives. Sequestration Working Group. We will then apply that expertise through the biological plans and conservation designs developed by LCCs. This expertise will be used to foster habitat restoration and carbon sequestration in key locations, such as National Wildlife Refuge System lands; and priority landscapes, such as the Lower Mississippi Valley.

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Objective 6.4: Facilitate Biological Carbon Section 712 of the Energy Independence Engagement and Security Act of 2007 mandates the Sequestration Internationally Department of the Interior to develop a methodology and assess the capacity Goal 7 One of our most important roles in of our nation’s ecosystems for ecological carbon sequestration may well be to We will engage Service employees; carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas facilitate habitat conservation through our local, State, Tribal, national, flux mitigation. Secretarial Order 3289 biological carbon sequestration at the implements the DOI Carbon Storage and international partners in the international level. By working with Project, with the U.S. Geological Survey public and private sectors; our key international partners and stakeholders as lead agency. The U.S. Geological to help reduce deforestation rates in constituencies and stakeholders; Survey has initiated the LandCarbon key areas, such as tropical forests; and Project to develop a methodology that and everyday citizens in a new era by providing technical assistance and meets specific Energy Independence and of collaborative conservation in funding for carbon sequestration through Security Act requirements. The Service reforestation, we will help preserve areas which, together, we seek solutions to will collaborate with the U.S. Geological critical to biodiversity conservation and the impacts of climate change and Survey in the implementation of the support greenhouse gas mitigation. We methodology on Service lands. other 21st century stressors of fish will work through our Wildlife Without Borders and Multinational Species and wildlife. programs to provide funding and technical Objective 6.6: Evaluate Geologic Carbon assistance for projects designed to Sequestration Objective 7.1: Provide Service Employees increase carbon sequestration, restore with Climate Change Information, Education, Geologic carbon sequestration is the habitat, and increase habitat connectivity and Training internationally. isolation and/or removal of carbon dioxide from industrial processes and Climate change is ushering in a new its long-term storage underground to Objective 6.5: Facilitate Biological Carbon era of conservation for the Service that reduce or prevent increasing levels of involves novel ways of thinking and bold Sequestration Research 15 carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The innovations in the way we do business. Department owns or has a material There are still gaps in our understanding We will view all of our endeavors interest in more than 500 million acres of biological carbon sequestration and its through the lens of climate change and of land in the United States, including benefits for wildlife habitat, especially be willing to question the status quo, National Wildlife Refuges. Beneath some in regard to wetlands and grasslands. re-examine priorities and make difficult of these lands exists the potential to Our carbon sequestration experts and choices regarding where we can make sequester carbon dioxide in oil and gas managers will work with others, such as a difference and where we cannot. We reservoirs, deep saline reservoirs, and the U.S. Geological Survey, to identify and will communicate our climate change un-mineable coal seams. The Department fill information gaps regarding biological Strategic Plan to employees Service- may undertake an inventory of geologic carbon sequestration. wide. Every employee will be challenged carbon sequestration potential on its to be engaged and to contribute to the lands and may conduct research on plan’s development and implementation. the feasibility and environmental Our highly dedicated employees and risks associated with geologic our field-based organizational structure sequestration. We will participate in are our core strengths in addressing the the Department’s geologic carbon impacts of climate change on wildlife sequestration efforts to help ensure resources. Building awareness within that potential impacts to fish and our workforce about the challenges and wildlife are considered and minimized. threats from a changing climate and developing the expertise to address these impacts are priorities.

Strategic Goals & Objectives / 29 Strategic Goals & Objectives

Our External Affairs program and role, our External Affairs program Objective 7.3: Forge Alliances and Create National Conservation Training and National Conservation Training Center will develop and implement a Center will develop and implement, in Forums on Climate Change to Exchange comprehensive employee engagement conjunction with programs and regions, Information and Knowledge and to Influence strategy addressing internal needs for a comprehensive engagement strategy International Policy information, education, and training for external information, education, and about climate change. The plan will communication about climate change. Working principally through our be aimed at ensuring every Service The plan will help to create a broad-scale International Affairs and Migratory employee understands basic climate awareness of the urgent nature of the Birds programs, we will engage other change science, the urgency of the effects of accelerating climate change countries in sharing state-of-the-art climate change challenge to our mission, on fish and wildlife and habitats; and knowledge on climate change adaptation, and what actions each of us can take will engage others in becoming part mitigation, and education strategies. We professionally and personally to engage of the solution through such means as will seek to learn from their experiences in mitigation and adaptation activities. minimizing their carbon footprints. and will share our experiences with them to achieve a common understanding and The National Conservation Training The National Conservation Training common ground for moving forward Center will develop and implement Center will work with the Refuge System together on climate change policy a climate change curriculum to train and the Fisheries program to develop and action. We will also seek ways to Service employees in methods to address climate change materials and provide address climate change more effectively climate change in their day-to-day informational, educational, and training through the United Nations Framework activities. The training will also prepare opportunities to external audiences, Convention on Climate Change; our employees to serve as a resource using the National Wildlife Refuge international conventions, such as for our partners, stakeholders, and System, National Fish Hatcheries, the Convention on International the public as these groups engage in the Service website, and employee Trade in Endangered Species of Wild climate change adaptation and mitigation presentations as primary venues for this Fauna and Flora, the Convention on activities. The National Conservation engagement with the public. Wetlands of International Importance Training Center will incorporate climate (Ramsar Convention), and other change information from this curriculum To become a better, more informed international agreements. into other course offerings partner, we will actively seek knowledge as appropriate. from State, Federal, Tribal, and local By also engaging with our international government agencies; non-governmental partners and foreign governments in informing and educating their citizens Objective 7.2: Share Climate Change organizations; business and industry already engaged in addressing climate about the causes and consequences of Information, Education, and Training change; and individual citizens. We will climate change, the Service will have an Opportunities with External Audiences put the same energy into learning opportunity to further wildlife adaptation and climate change mitigation around the To effectively address climate change from others as we do teaching others what we know. world. With our partners, we will help to nationally, every conservation partner create worldwide support for minimizing must be both a learner and a teacher. We will provide technical assistance deforestation and for creating new As we in the Service learn, we will habitat through carbon sequestration also step up to fulfill our teaching role to public and private landowners, conservation organizations, business and activities; and we will encourage local with our national and international community participation in international partners, our stakeholders, our industry, and governments at all levels to help them understand impacts to carbon markets that reduce greenhouse key constituencies, and the public, gas emissions. anticipating that they will do the same fish, wildlife and habitats as a result for us. To accomplish our teaching of climate change; and to encourage them to undertake adaptation, mitigation, and engagement activities to address those impacts.

30 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change Rising to the Challenge

Our plan is ambitious — rightfully and necessarily so. When it comes heroes upon whose shoulders we stand, to climate change, we cannot afford a failure of imagination. If we are to and like them, we will rise up to confront the conservation challenge of our day accomplish our vital mission of “working with others to conserve, protect, with courage and resolve. We will move and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing forward with enthusiasm and optimism borne of confidence in the soundness benefit of the American people,” addressing the greatest threat to that of the plans we have created, in the mission — climate change — must be our highest priority. ingenuity of our workforce, and in the results we will achieve in collaboration with our partners. We will remain e must treat climate change as As daunting as the issue of climate inspired by keeping the future of fish and Wthe national security issue that change may seem, we accept that every wildlife at the forefront of our thinking. it is. Going forward, we must dedicate generation has faced environmental And we will look forward to that day our energies, our resources, and our challenges, and this is ours to deal with. when we can speak of climate change as creativity to a long-term campaign to We will remember those conservation yesterday’s crisis. reduce emissions of greenhouse gases as a first line of attack in a battle against an enemy that threatens the sustainability of fish and wildlife populations, the viability of ecosystems, and the well- being of every citizen. We must mobilize We stand now where two roads diverge. efforts to help fish and wildlife adapt to changes that have already occurred But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s in their habitats as a result of climate change, and changes that we foresee in familiar poem, they are not equally fair. the future. We must confront climate change as a communal problem, engaging The road we have long been traveling all segments of society as partners and potential partners. We must implement is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway our Strategic Plan and 5-Year Action Plan, reaching inward to every part of on which we progress with great speed, our organization and outward to the but at its end lies disaster. The other fork larger conservation community to build the will, the relationships, the capabilities of the road / the one less traveled by / and the resources we need to succeed. offers our last, our only chance We will carry out our responsibilities with humility and gratitude — humility to reach a destination that assures in recognizing how much we have yet to learn about climate change and the preservation of the earth. its impacts on wildlife; and gratitude that if we act now, it is not too late to Rachel Carson (1907–1964), world-famous environmentalist, celebrated author, do something about it. We honor our and one-time employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees for the important strides they have already made in addressing climate change on the ground before Service plans were formalized, and we will build on those efforts. We respect our conservation partners for the ways in which they are taking action to address climate change as organizations and as individuals, and we will join our efforts with theirs.

Rising to the Challenge / 31 Literature Cited

1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 5 Both, C., S. Bouwhuis, C.M. Lessells, and 11 Galatowitsch, S., L. Frelich, and L. Phillips- Change. 2007. Climate Change 2007: M.E. Visser. 2006. Climate change and Mao. 2009. Regional climate change Synthesis Report. Contribution of population declines in a long-distance adaptation strategies for biodiversity Working Groups I, II and III to the migratory bird. Nature 414:81-83. conservation in a midcontinental region of Fourth Assessment Report of the North America. Biological Conservation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 6 Field, C.B., L.D. Mortsch, M. Brklacich, 142:2012-2022. Change [Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R.K D.L. Forbes, P. Kovacs, J.A. Patz, and Reisinger, A. (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, S.W. Running and M.J. Scott. 2007. 12 Choi, Y.D. 2007. Restoration ecology Switzerland. 104 pp. North America. Climate Change 2007: to the future: A call for new paradigm. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Restoration Ecology 15(2):351-353. 2 Backlund, P., A. Janetos, and D. Schimel Contribution of Working Group II to (convening lead authors). 2008. The the Fourth Assessment Report of the 13 Mawdsley, J.R., R. O’Malley, and D.S. effects of climate change on agriculture, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Ojima. 2009. A review of climate- land resources, water resources, and Change. M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. change adaptation strategies for biodiversity in the United States. Synthesis Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. wildlife management and biodiversity and Assessment Product 4.3. Report by Hanson, (eds.) IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland. conservation. Conservation Biology the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Pages 617-652. 23(5):1080-1089. and the Subcommittee on Global Change 14 Beier, P., and B. Brost. 2010. Use of Research. U.S. Environmental Protection 7 Glick, P., J. Clough, and B. Nunley. 2008. land facets to plan for climate change: Agency, Washington, D.C. 362 pp. Sea level rise and coastal habitats in the Chesapeake Bay region. Technical Report. Conserving the arenas, not the actors. 3 US Fish and Wildlife Service. 2008. National Wildlife Federation, Washington, Conservation Biology 24(3):701-710. Determination of threatened status for the DC. 121 pp. 15 Department of the Interior Task Force polar bear (Ursus maritimus) throughout on Climate Change. 2008. An analysis its range. Federal Register Vol. 73:28212- 8 National Ecological Assessment Team of climate change impacts and options 28303. May 15, 2008. (NEAT). 2006. Strategic Habitat Conservation: Final Report of the National relevant to the Department of the 4 McLaughlin, J.F., J.J. Hellmann, C.L. Ecological Assessment Team. July 2006. Interior’s managed lands and waters: Boggs, and P.R. Ehrlich. 2002. Climate “45 pp. Report of the subcommittee on land and change hastens population extinctions. water management. Department of the Proceedings of the National Academy of 9 Runge, M. 2008. Strategic Habitat Interior, Washington, DC. 150 pp. Sciences 99:6070-6074. Conservation: Making sense of acronyms. Refuge Update 5(3):10-11.

10 Millar, C.I., N.L. Stephenson, and S.L. Stephens. 2007. Climate change and forests of the future: Managing in the face of uncertainty. Ecological Applications 17(8):2145-2151.

32 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change

The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service.

For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit .

September 2010