U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Rising to the 

Urgent Challenge

Strategic Plan for Responding to 

Accelerating Climate Change
On the cover: Polar bears. 

Courtesy of National Geographic 

Society.

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.
1

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 / 23

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 / 26

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 / 29

Rising to the Challenge / 31

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

of species extinctions. In turn, these 

changes will adversely affect local, 

State, Tribal, regional, national and 

international economies and cultures; 

and will diminish the goods, services, 

and social benefits that we Americans 

are accustomed to receiving, at little 

cost to ourselves, from ecosystems 

across our nation.

Given the disruption that a changing 

climate implies for our mission, our 

nation, and our world, we in the Service 

and the Department cannot afford to 

simply give lip service to this crisis and 

go on about business as usual. We are at 

a crossroads in our nation’s conservation 

history. We must rise up and respond 

to a 21st century conservation challenge 

with 21st century organizational, 

managerial, and scientific tools and 

approaches. To address and combat 

climate change and its impacts, we must 

position the Service more strategically 

for this battle. We must build shared 

scientific and technical capabilities with 

others and work more collaboratively 

than ever before with the conservation 

communityb, in particular, our State 

and Tribal partners, who share direct 

responsibility for managing our nation’s 

wildlife resources.

Executive Overview

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.

T he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is an agency born of

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 

fishes from overharvesting, and its mandate was to find ways to reverse that 

decline. By the early 1900s, a crisis over the decimation of migratory birds 

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 

wildlife laws. By the mid-1960s, the loss and threat of loss of species of fish 

and wildlifea from human-induced pressures grew the Service’s mission to also 

include the conservation and recovery of threatened and endangered species.

Our Climate Change Principles

Priority-Setting. We will continually evaluate 

our priorities and approaches, make difficult 

choices, take calculated risks and adapt to 

climate change.

Partnership. We will commit to a new 

spirit of coordination, collaboration and 

interdependence with others.

Best Science. We will reflect scientific 

excellence, professionalism, and integrity 

in all our work.

Landscape Conservation. We will 

emphasize the conservation of habitats 

within sustainable landscapes, applying our 

Strategic Habitat Conservation framework.

Technical Capacity. We will assemble and 

use state-of-the-art technical capacity to 

meet the climate change challenge.

Global Approach. We will be a leader in 

national and international efforts to address 

climate change.

Over its 139-year history, the Service has faced every challenge to the 

future of the nation’s fish and wildlife 

heritage head-on. As an agency 

within the Department of the Interior 

(Department), we have attracted to our 

ranks those individuals whose personal 

commitment to conserving, protecting, 

and enhancing America’s fish and 

wildlife resources is matched by their 

professional resolve to do whatever it 

takes to accomplish that mission. The 

passion and creativity that drove Spencer 

Baird, Paul Kroegel, Guy Bradley, J.N. 

“Ding” Darling, Rachel Carson and 

countless others who have stood in the 

breach for wildlife lives on in the hearts 

and minds of today’s Fish and Wildlife 

Service employees.

At the dawn of the 21st century, we find 

our commitment and resolve and our 

passion and creativity being called upon 

once again as we face what portends 

to be the greatest challenge to fish and 

wildlife conservation in the history 

of the Service: The Earth’s climate is 

changing at an accelerating rate that has 

the potential to cause abrupt changes 

in ecosystems and increase the risk 

A diver monitors coral reef health at the 

FWS-managed Palmyra Atoll National 

Wildlife Refuge. Photo: J. Maragos / usfws
Executive Overview / 3

Our Strategic Plan’s primary purposes 

are to (1) lay out our vision for 

accomplishing our mission to “work 

with others to conserve, protect, and 

enhance fish, wildlife, and plants 

and their habitats for the continuing 

benefit of the American people” in the 

face of accelerating climate change; 

and (2) provide direction for our own 

organization and its employees, 

defining our role within the context 

of the Department of the Interior and 

the larger conservation community. In 

this plan, we express our commitment 

to our vision through strategic goals 

and objectives that we believe must 

be accomplished to sustain fish and 

wildlife nationally and internationally. 

In an appended 5-Year Action Plan 

for Implementing the Climate Change 

Strategic Plan, we identify specific actions 

that will lead to the accomplishment of 

our goals and objectives.

As a Service and Department we must 

act decisively, recognizing that climate 

change threatens to exacerbate other 

existing pressures on the sustainability of 

our fish and wildlife resources. We must 

act boldly, without having all the answers, 

confident that we will learn and adapt as 

we go. And most importantly, 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.

As a Service, we are committed to 

examining everything we do, every 

decision we make, and every dollar we 

spend through the lens of climate change, 

fully confident in our workforce to rise to 

this challenge and to lead from in front 

and from behind. We recognize their 

efforts that are already underway, and 

we look to our employees for their onthe-ground knowledge and expertise in 

focusing our energies and recalibrating 

our activities.

Our Strategic Plan acknowledges that 

no single organization or agency can 

address an environmental challenge of 

such global proportions without allying 

itself with others in partnerships across 

the nation and around the world. This 

document commits us to a philosophy 

of interdependent, collaborative 

conservation, rooted in our Climate 

Change Principles (see sidebar, page 2).

Tide Returns to Nisqually Estuary

River delta restoration projects are 

considered crucial to provide increased 

resiliency to large estuary systems and 

illustrate a tool for adaptation in the face of 

climate change and related impacts of sea 

level rise. After a century of diking off tidal 

flow, the Brown Farm Dike was removed 

to inundate 762 acres of Nisqually (WA) 

National Wildlife Refuge in October 2009. 

Along with 140 acres of tidal wetlands 

restored by the Nisqually Indian Tribe, the 

Nisqually Delta represents the largest tidal 

marsh restoration project in the Pacific 

Northwest to assist in recovery of Puget 

Sound salmon and wildlife populations. 

During the past decade, the refuge and close 

partners, including the Tribe and Ducks 

Unlimited, have restored more than 22 miles 

of the historic tidal slough systems and 

re-connected historic floodplains to the 

Puget Sound in Washington, increasing 

potential salt marsh habitat in the southern 

reach of Puget Sound by 50 percent. The 

project also restored 25 acres of riparian 

surge plain forest, an extremely depleted 

type of tidal forest important for juvenile 

salmon and songbirds.

Restoration of the Nisqually estuary is an 

adaptation approach that helps promote 

system resiliency to climate change effects 

such as:

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: usfws

Individual 

commitment to a 

group effort — that is 

what makes a team 

work, a company 

work, a society work, 

a civilization work.

Vince Lombardi, 1913 –1970, American football 

coach and national symbol of single-minded 

determination to win

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

We recognize that as an organization, 

the Service has been entrusted by the 

American people with legal authorities 

for fish and wildlife conservation that 

are national and international in scope 

and that put us in a position of unique 

responsibility within the conservation 

community. These authorities and 

responsibilities include working across 

jurisdictional boundaries in shared 

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-millionacre National Wildlife Refuge System; 

and collaborating in carrying out 

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 

efforts with those of our partners, how 

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.

The goals and objectives of our Strategic Plan are nested 

under three major strategies:

Adaptation: Minimizing the impact of climate change on fish and wildlife through the 

application of cutting-edge science in managing species and habitats.

Mitigation: Reducing levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Engagement: Joining forces with others to seek solutions to the challenges and threats to 

fish and wildlife conservation posed by climate change.

Executive Overview

Brian Jonkers / USFWS

Federal and State biologists survey aquatic resources to document the effects of changing 

temperatures and water quality.
Our Vision / 5

While many species will continue to thrive, we also envision that some 

populations and species may decline or 

be lost, and some will only survive in the 

wild through our direct and continuous 

intervention. We will be especially 

challenged to conserve species and 

habitats that are particularly vulnerabled 

to climate-driven changes, but we will 

dedicate our absolute best efforts and 

expertise to the task, understanding 

fully that we must continue to meet our 

obligations for conserving trust species. 

We will need to make choices and set 

priorities and, working with our partners, 

apply ourselves where we can make the 

greatest difference.

We see climate change as an issue that 

will unite the conservation community 

like no other issue has since the early 

1960s, when Rachel Carson sounded an 

alarm about pesticides. We envision a 

new era of collaborative conservation 

in which members of the conservation 

community work interdependently, 

building knowledge, sharing expertise, 

and pooling resources as we craft explicit 

landscape-scale goals and pursue these 

goals together. We foresee unparalleled 

opportunities to engage with, and 

enlist the involvement of, private 

citizens, businesses and industry, nongovernmental organizations, and national 

and international governments at all 

levels to conserve fish and wildlife in the 

face of climate change.

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. 

Our Vision

Rising Sea Levels on North Carolina Coast

North Carolina’s east coast is 

identified as particularly 

vulnerable to climate change 

because it is so long, low and 

flat. As rising sea levels have 

pushed saltwater into the area, 

peat soils are degrading and 

plants and trees have died. 

Researchers estimate that 1 

million acres along the coast 

could be lost within 100 years.

We know that the estuarine 

waters surrounding Alligator 

River National Wildlife Refuge are getting saltier. We’ve seen with our own eyes shoreline 

losses and plant community changes on thousands of acres of this 153,000-acre Refuge. 

Modeling data suggests that if nothing is done, we’ll lose up to 67 percent of swamp land and 

90 of dry land by 2100 — that’s most of the Refuge.

We’re finding opportunities in the crisis. We’re working with The Nature Conservancy, 

Duke Energy, and other partners to create a management response that includes building 

resilience into the land and connecting Refuge lands to other lands. Duke Energy donated 

$1 million that will fund climate change research and activities to help wildlife adapt to the 

effects of rising sea levels on the Refuge. 

Mike Bryant, Project Leader, North Carolina Coastal Plain Refuges Complex, Manteo, NC

(Above) Saltwater intrusion is affecting plant life at Alligator River NWR. 

Photo: Debbie Crane / The Nature Conservancy

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

Climate change is an immense, serious, and sobering challenge —

one that will affect fish and wildlife profoundly. At the same time, climate 

change is galvanizing the conservation community in ways we have not seen 

since a half-century ago, when Silent Spring alerted the world to the hazards 

of overuse of pesticides and launched a worldwide environmental movement. 

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 <elips.doi.gov/app_so/act_getfiles.cfm?order_number=3289A1>.

Introduction

As concern for climate change and its impacts grows, so do the 

opportunities for the Service and 

members of the conservation community 

to pool our talents, imagination, 

creativity, and spirit of public service 

to reduce and manage those impacts 

in ways that sustain fish and wildlife. 

Working interdependently and 

collaboratively, the Service will mount 

a bold response to climate change, on 

the ground, where our actions have the 

most impact; and in other settings where 

policies, priorities, and budgets are 

shaped and tough choices and decisions 

are made.

Across the Service, our employees 

have initiated action to address 

climate change. Some employees are 

monitoring sea level rise and exploring 

ways of safeguarding our coastal 

National Wildlife Refuges and the trust 

resources they support. Others are 

working tirelessly with water managers 

to ensure fish and wildlife resources 

are considered meaningfully in water 

allocation decisions, particularly in the 

Southwest, where climate change is 

likely to exacerbate drought. Some are 

busy calculating the Service’s carbon 

footprinte and devising innovative ways 

to help the Service become carbon 

neutralf. Still other employees are 

reaching out to our workforce and our 

external partners to help them better 

understand the direction and magnitude 

of climate change and its effects on fish 

and wildlife.

It remains for the Service to do two 

things: First, we must focus the talents, 

creativity and energy of our employees 

on a common set of strategies, goals, 

objectives and actions for addressing 

climate change impacts. Second, we 

must provide employees with additional 

support in terms of knowledge, 

technology, and resources to enable 

them to realize their full potential in 

conserving fish and wildlife in the face 

of climate change.

This Strategic Plan establishes a basic 

framework within which the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service will work as part 

of a broader, Department-wide strategyg

and with the larger conservation 

community (especially States and 

Tribes as entities with formal wildlife 

management responsibilities) to help 

ensure the sustainability of fish and 

wildlife in light of accelerating climate 

change. The plan looks broadly at 

how climate change is affecting these 

resources; what our role will be as a key 

member of the conservation community 

with national responsibilities for fish 

and wildlife conservation; and what 

we will contribute to the international 

community and its campaign to ensure 

the future of fish and wildlife globally.

Did You Know...

n In the Arctic, record losses of sea ice 

over the past decade are affecting the 

distribution, behavior, and abundance 

of polar bears, animals that are almost 

completely dependent upon sea ice for 

survival.

n In the Southeast, rising sea levels are 

expected to flood as much as 30 percent of 

the habitat on the Service’s coastal Refuges.

n In the Southwest, climate change is 

already exacerbating deep droughts, 

increasing pressure on water uses at the 

Service’s National Fish Hatcheries and 

National Wildlife Refuges.

n In the Northwest, climate change is 

warming the landscape and enabling insect 

pests to expand their ranges and destroy 

ecologically and commercially valuable 

forests.

This plan is a starting point for action 

and discussion. It was drafted by a 

team of Service employees representing 

all regions and programs, and has 

been revised to reflect the thousands 

of comments from Service employees 

and members of the public. We look 

forward to updating it further as we 

work with and learn from others, as our 

experiences and knowledge grow, and 

as the conservation community unites 

more closely in a new era of collaborative 

conservation.
The Crisis / 7

2– 3°C above preindustrial levels. 

Global average temperature increases 

of 0.74°C are already documented, and 

temperature increases in some areas are 

projected to exceed 3.0°C over the next 

decade. The IPCC further concludes 

that substantial changes in structure 

and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems 

are very likely to occur with a global 

warming of more than 2–3°C above preindustrial levels. These changes will have 

predominantly negative consequences 

for biodiversity and ecosystem goods and 

services (e.g., water and food).

The IPCC also reports that the resilience 

of many ecosystems around the world 

is likely to be exceeded this century 

by an unprecedented combination of 

climate change; disturbances associated 

with climate change, such as flooding, 

drought, wildfire, and insects; and 

other global change-drivers, including 

land-use changes, pollution, habitat 

fragmentation, urbanization, and growing 

human populations and economies. 

These projected changes have enormous 

implications for management of fish 

and wildlife and their habitats around 

the world.

Climate change has the potential to 

cause abrupt ecosystem changes and 

increased species extinctions. These 

changes will reduce the ability of natural 

systems to provide many societal 

goods and services—including the 

availability of clean water, our planet’s 

lifeblood—which in turn will impact 

local, regional, and national economies 

and cultures. Clearly, we cannot delay 

in addressing climate change effects on 

fish and wildlife. They demand urgent 

attention and aggressive action.

environment, evidence is growing that 

higher water temperatures resulting 

from climate change are negatively 

impacting cold- and cool-water fish 

populations across the country6. Along 

our coasts, rising sea levels have begun to 

affect fish and wildlife habitats, including 

those used by shorebirds and sea turtles 

that nest on our coastal National Wildlife 

Refuges7. In the oceans, subtropical 

and tropical corals in shallow waters 

have already suffered major bleaching 

events driven by increases in sea surface 

temperatures.2

The immensity and urgency of 

the climate change challenge are 

indeed sobering. The IPCC’s Fourth 

Assessment Report1 estimates that 

approximately 20–30 percent of the 

world’s plant and animal species assessed 

as of 2006 are likely to be at increasingly 

high risk of extinction as global mean 

temperatures exceed a warming of 

Agrowing body of evidence has linked accelerating climate changeh with 

observed changes in fish and wildlife, 

their populations, and their habitats 

in the United States2. Polar bear 

population declines have already been 

noted in Canada3, and extirpations of 

Bay checkerspot butterfly populations 

in the San Francisco Bay4 area are also 

documented. Across the continental 

United States, climate change is 

affecting the migration cycles and 

body condition of migratory songbirds, 

causing decoupling of the arrival dates 

of birds on their breeding grounds and 

the availability of the food they need for 

successful reproduction5. 

Climate change has very likely increased 

the size and number of wildfires, insect 

outbreaks, pathogens, disease outbreaks, 

and tree mortality in the interior 

West, the Southwest, and Alaska and 

will continue to do so.2 In the aquatic 

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from 

observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, 

widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level. ... 

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the 

mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic 

greenhouse gas concentrations.” So concludes the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report published 

in 20071. There is no longer any doubt that the Earth’s climate is changing 

at an accelerating rate and that the changes are largely the result of 

human-generated greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere caused 

by increasing human development and population growth. Climate change has 

manifested itself in rising sea levels, melting sea ice and glaciers, changing 

precipitation patterns, growing frequency and severity of storms, and 

increasing ocean acidification.

The Crisis

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

Upper Klamath Lake Net Inflow, 1961 to 2007

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Net Inflow volume (taf)

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

July to September net inflow volume

Statistical trend line (p=0.003)

July to September Upper Klamath Lake Net Inflow, 1961 to 2007 This graph 

shows the actual 

measurements of 

net inflows. The 

dashed statisticaltrend line indicates 

that despite some 

variability from 

year to year, 

there has been a 

downward trend

from July–Sept. 

since 1961.

To succeed in sustaining fish and wildlife, our plans and actions must 

recognize all management roles and 

authorities and realistically reflect the 

limitations and uncertainties in our 

understanding of climate change. They 

must target stewardship activities at 

all geographic scales, beginning with 

the design of conservation strategies at 

landscape scales. Our plans and actions 

must also encourage collaborative 

approaches that give common purpose 

to our employees and our conservation 

activities at local, State, regional, 

national, continental, international, and 

global levels.

Our experiences with climate change, 

such as the effect of sea ice changes on 

polar bears, have taught us that we will 

be increasingly challenged to recalibrate 

our conservation goals by integrating 

climate change. We need to plan for 

conservation on landscape scales and 

be prepared to act quickly, sometimes 

without the scientific certainty we 

would prefer.

Climate change is the transformational 

conservation challenge of our time, 

not only because of its direct effects, 

but also because of its influence on the 

other stressors that have been and 

will continue to be major conservation 

priorities.

Many other issues, such as the spread 

and control of invasive species; the 

mounting pressures on limited water 

supplies; the need for robust fire 

management to help conserve natural 

systems; the harm to species from 

exposure to environmental contaminants; 

continued changes in land use, 

specifically habitat loss; and the impacts 

of all of these factors on biodiversity, 

have been and will continue to pose 

tremendous challenges to sustaining 

healthy, vibrant ecosystems.

Mission success in fish and wildlife conservation over the coming

decades will require unprecedented cooperation and partnership 

among governments, private sector and non-government organizations, 

and individual citizens. Consequently, the greatest challenge we and other 

members of the conservation community face is the need to form new and 

interdependent relationships, sharing integrated capacities, building on 

common strengths, identifying and addressing weaknesses, and focusing our 

responses on shared goals and objectives. For the Service, this is especially 

true of our relationships with State fish and wildlife agencies, which have 

management authority on much of our nation’s lands and waters; and with 

Tribal fish and wildlife management authorities. 

The Challenge

Effect of Warmer Winters On Spring Snowpack and Summer Stream-flows

In the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon, spring snowpack represents a reservoir of water 

that will sustain stream-flows throughout the summer. In recent years, warmer winters have 

resulted in more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, reducing the spring snowpack. 

Rivers in the upper Basin have shown rather large declines in stream inflows in recent 

decades. This includes inflows to Upper Klamath Lake that provide water for irrigation, 

National Wildlife Refuges, sucker habitat, and downstream river-flows for salmon.

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 

to meet competing demands. Like many water issues in the West, resolution of water issues 

in the Klamath Basin will require landscape-scale solutions and the active involvement and 

cooperation of all stakeholders.

Tim Mayer, Water Resources Branch Hydrologist, Engineering Division, Portland, OR
The Challenge / 9

Future Impacts Are Uncertain

One of the major challenges of 

addressing climate change effects on fish 

and wildlife is identifying and addressing 

uncertaintyi

 in our understanding of 

future climate change and how that 

change will affect ecological systems. Our 

understanding of future climate change is 

based largely on projections from global 

climate models (also known as General 

Circulation Models) that are run using 

different greenhouse gas emissions 

scenarios developed by the IPCC. 

These projections contain a degree of 

uncertainty resulting from the inability of 

climate models to perfectly simulate the 

climate system, particularly at regional 

geographic scales and less than decadal 

time intervals; and uncertainty over 

which greenhouse gas emissions scenario 

will be realized in the future. As the 

IPCC has stated, the emissions scenarios 

are “based on assumptions concerning...

future socio-economic and technological 

developments that may or may not 

be realized, and are therefore 

subject to substantial uncertainty.” 

There also remains much uncertainty 

over how climate change will affect 

ecological systems at different 

scales, especially in its interactions 

with such non-climate stressors as 

land-use changes.

Climate change does not replace these 

other threats or render them less 

important; they must remain priorities in 

the years ahead. It is, however, essential 

that we understand how climate change 

will exacerbate these threats and pose 

new ones. For example, climate change 

will allow the range of some invasive 

species to expand, perhaps markedly. 

Climate change will also make some 

regions drier, further complicating what 

are already very challenging efforts to 

capture water and deliver it to natural 

systems. These changes in precipitation 

patterns will also affect fire regimes. Our 

employees and partners will need to take 

this into account in their management 

activities so as to protect both the natural 

world and the places where people live.

In addition, climate change will have 

many unforeseen impacts on land use and 

development. For example, rising seas 

will result in immense pressure to build 

sea walls and other structures to protect 

coastal development. These actions will 

impact the fish and wildlife that rely upon 

nearby beaches, salt marshes and other 

natural habitats. Furthermore, climate 

change may divert development pressure 

from coastal areas to relatively higher 

ground as people seek to escape places 

threatened by rising seas. Together, all 

of these stressors will have impacts on 

species that are imperiled today, and they 

could cause others to become imperiled 

for the first time.

Finally, unanticipated impacts of climate 

change have already occurred and are 

likely to occur in the future. These 

impacts are difficult to predict based on 

our current understanding of climate 

and ecological systems, adding further 

uncertainty to our ability to predict 

the future. We must account for this 

uncertainty as we design, implement 

and evaluate our plans in response to 

climate change and as we carry out our 

management, regulatory and monitoring 

programs. We must learn as we go, using 

new knowledge and results of focused 

research to reduce uncertainty. As we 

learn more about climate change, we will 

be better able to refine our planning, 

decisions, and management actions to 

reflect that greater understanding.

The Challenge

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 of Thinking 

Differently about Partnerships

In the Southeast, we have built new 

relationships with traditional and nontraditional partners—The Conservation 

Fund, American Electric Power Company, 

and Entergy Inc.—to help achieve their 

objectives and ours. Nine years ago, we 

launched an innovative program in the 

Lower Mississippi Valley aimed at restoring 

native habitats to bolster populations of 

wildlife and migratory birds through a 

carbon sequestration initiative. Together 

we have added more than 40,000 acres 

of habitat to the National Wildlife Refuge 

System and reforested more than 80,000 

acres with more than 22 million trees, 

sequestering 30 million metric tons of 

carbon over the project’s 70-year lifetime.

Pete Jerome, Refuges and Wildlife Area 

Supervisor, Southeast Region, 

Atlanta, GA

Climate change is the transformational 

conservation challenge of our time
10 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

Making people more aware of how 

accelerating climate change is harming 

fish and wildlife and of how it reduces 

the flow of societal goods and affects 

ecosystem services is a challenge 

for the Service, our State and Tribal 

counterparts, and the conservation 

community at large. The same ecosystem 

functions that provide for sustainable 

fish and wildlife populations also provide 

communities with significant benefits, 

such as good water quality, flood and fire 

protection, and recreation. Meeting the 

challenge will require that the Service 

and its partners use every available 

communication tool to engage the public 

about the ecological, economic, social, and 

cultural costs exacted by climate change.

Scope and Magnitude Are Great

Another major challenge of accelerated 

climate change is its unprecedented 

scope and magnitude. In the history of 

wildlife conservation, the Service and 

the larger conservation community have 

never experienced a challenge that is 

so ubiquitous across the landscape. Our 

existing conservation infrastructure 

will be pressed to its limits—quite 

likely beyond its limits—to respond 

successfully. New and different capacities 

and capabilities will be required, and our 

dedicated employees will be challenged 

to acquire new skills quickly. We may 

find that elements of our current legal, 

regulatory, and policy frameworks within 

which we and our partners operate 

are no longer adequate to encourage 

and support the new approaches and 

innovative thinking needed to address 

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 

financial and technological resources 

commensurate with this great challenge; 

and we will need the political leadership 

and will to pursue necessary statutory 

and regulatory changes, apply predictive 

models, make risk-based decisions, 

and manage and operate adaptively in 

changing environments.

Determining Effects of Climate Change on Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout

Air temperature in the Southwest has 

increased markedly over the last 30 years, 

and greater increases are predicted. 

Because air temperature strongly influences 

water temperature, the temperature of 

streams that harbor our native Rio Grande 

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

The Challenge

The same ecosystem 

functions that provide 

for sustainable 

fish and wildlife 

populations also 

provide communities 

with significant 

benefits, such as good 

water quality, flood 

and fire protection, 

and recreation.
Our Committed Response / 11

Leadership and Management

We anticipate that within the next few 

years, the U.S. Congress and the Federal 

Government will make political decisions 

and policies relative to climate change 

that will have enormous significance 

for 21st century conservation of fish 

and wildlife and their habitats. To help 

shape these decisions and policies, the 

Service must already have in place at 

the national and regional levels a climate 

change leadership and management 

capability that can provide a credible 

and cohesive approach to the issue. 

Our National Climate Team and eight 

Regional Climate Teams, operating 

under the guidance of our Directorate 

and its National Science Applications 

Executive Team, will help us establish 

that capability and credibility. 

The National Climate Team will have 

representation from Service regions 

and programs; and the Regional 

Climate Teams will be made up of both 

Regional Office and field employees. 

Together, these teams will provide input 

to the development of national climate 

change policies and guidance; and 

provide leadership and direction in the 

management of the Service’s climate 

change activities, including budget and 

performance; policy development 

address the impacts that climate change 

is already having or will have on fish, 

wildlife and habitats.

The Directorate and the Washington 

Office must lead the way by recognizing 

the crisis nature of climate change and 

seeking the resources needed to address 

it; by making difficult choices about 

Service program priorities and 

budgets that will guide and define our 

activities; and by calling upon every 

employee to get appropriately involved 

in our adaptation, mitigation, and 

engagement strategies.

Regional leaders and employees must 

lead the way by stepping down national 

guidance and plans to the field, 

facilitating the feedback loop between 

national leadership and the field, 

ensuring that resources to accomplish 

work on the ground reach those who 

need them, and removing any barriers 

to success.

Project leaders and field employees must 

lead the way by ground-truthing 

our efforts, implementing our 

strategies, monitoring our results, 

and recommending new approaches 

as necessary.

All employees must lead the way by 

participating in the creation of new 

climate change partnerships, and by 

working with others to find new and 

innovative means for incorporating 

climate change considerations into our 

day-to-day activities.

Climate change leadership will function 

in much the same way as our Strategic 

Habitat Conservation approach—

it will be more iterative than hierarchical, 

with Service leaders at each level making 

indispensable and ongoing contributions 

as they operate in constellation with 

one another.

and implementation; landscape 

conservation design, delivery, and 

evaluation; internal and external 

partnership development; Congressional 

assistance; engagement and 

communication; and science direction.

Accomplishing our mission in an era of 

accelerated climate change will require 

a fundamental rethinking of how we in 

the Service do business in the coming 

decades, including how we define leaders 

and leadership and how we manage and 

deliver our conservation activities.

The exercise of leadership will not be 

limited to the Directorate or the National 

and Regional Climate Teams; it must 

permeate all levels of the Service. The 

crisis of a changing climate is unlike any 

other we have faced in world history. 

Climate change is not the result of the 

actions of the few that are impacting 

the many; it is the direct result of the 

activities of each one of us as we live and 

work in the modern world. In a crisis of 

this magnitude and scope, we must each 

take leadership in our own sphere of 

influence to make the changes that will 

eliminate or reduce the causative factors 

of climate change. As Service employees, 

we each have the added responsibility 

of taking leadership within our 

professional spheres of influence to 

In our Strategic Plan, we commit to creating an informed, credible 

climate change leadership and management capability that will implement 

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 

shape the conservation community’s response to the impacts of this global 

environmental scourge on fish, wildlife and habitats. We will employ three 

progressive strategies—Adaptation, Mitigation, and Engagement —

in carrying out our strategic goals and objectives. Through this cohesive, 

integrated response, we will fulfill our commitment to the American people 

and take our appropriate role within the conservation community in 

addressing the challenges presented by accelerating climate change.

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

Climate Change Entrepreneurs

As a Service, we will approach the 

management and delivery of our 

conservation activities with a new spirit 

of entrepreneurship, which we define as 

“the process of identifying, evaluating, 

and seizing an opportunity and bringing 

together the resources necessary 

for success.” As climate change 

entrepreneurs, we will learn and embrace 

new conservation approaches that lead 

to better results for fish and wildlife. 

We will face hard facts, and we will 

redirect our priorities and make difficult 

budget decisions as those facts dictate. 

We will hold ourselves accountable, 

formally monitoring and evaluating 

the effectiveness of our efforts as we 

implement our Strategic Plan and our 

5-Year Action Plan. We will seek outside, 

independent reviews of our climate 

change efforts after 3 years. We will 

recognize and reward Service employees, 

programs, or offices that demonstrate 

entrepreneurship by taking substantive 

actions on climate change adaptation, 

mitigation, or engagement.

Leading Through Action

As a Service, we willingly accept the 

opportunity to be a leader on climate 

change within the fish and wildlife 

conservation community, recognizing 

that this leadership will be demonstrated 

through actions, not words. We will 

show leadership by working with 

States, Tribes, and others to effectively 

represent fish and wildlife conservation 

interests in discussions relating to 

national climate policy and legislation. 

We will also work with the conservation 

community to help create climate change 

legislation that incorporates wildlife 

adaptation strategies, as outlined in our 

Our Committed Response

Climate Change Implicated in the Mystery of the Dying Moose

No visit to northern Minnesota is 

complete without seeing a 

moose. So you can imagine our 

concern here at Agassiz National 

Wildlife Refuge when the moose 

population dropped dramatically 

in a few years’ time. The Refuge 

was once home to 250 to 400 

moose. Today, it is estimated that 

less than 40 remain on Agassiz. 

The decline in population on the 

Refuge was part of a regional 

decline in Northwest Minnesota.

This population fell from a peak of 4,000 animals in 1984 to a low of about 85 in 2007. A 

research study initiated in 1985 with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources 

and support from citizens, landowners, and volunteers concluded that climatic changes, 

combined with increased deer numbers and parasitic transmission rates, may have rendered 

Northwest Minnesota inhospitable to moose. Winter and summer temperatures in the past 

41 years have increased by about 12°F and 4°F, respectively. The study showed that moose 

declines often occurred the year after summers with higher mean temperatures. Moose have 

temperature thresholds that, when exceeded, require them to expend energy to keep cool. 

The data indicates that warmer temperatures may have contributed to heat stress, which in 

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 

shrink are reversed, we will probably see fewer moose in Northwest Minnesota.

Maggie Anderson, Manager, Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge, Middle River, MN 

(Above) Bull moose. Photo: Beth Silverhus

Strategic Plan, and that reflects our 

climate change principles for addressing 

this conservation challenge. We will play 

a key role in galvanizing governments, 

organizations, businesses and industry to 

collaborate in developing a National Fish 

and Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy 

and partnering in its implementation.
Our Committed Response / 13

new resources that we need, reprioritize 

and reallocate the resources we have, 

and leverage our collective resources 

by working in partnerships, internally 

and externally. Our greatest certainty 

of receiving additional resources is 

to demonstrate leadership on climate 

change by assembling our best talent 

and aligning our present resources and 

priorities in response to this challenge. 

Our nation is at a turning point in 

regard to climate change, and we have 

the opportunity and the responsibility 

to help tip the balance in favor of 

aggressive action.

Given the magnitude of the threat posed 

by climate change to life as we know it, 

we cannot afford to think small or be held 

back by our fears or concerns. All great 

achievements in human history have 

occurred within the context of daunting 

challenges and have been accomplished 

by people with vision who were willing 

to move forward without having all the 

answers and resources they would have 

desired. Our National Wildlife Refuge 

System, a 150-million-acre network of 

lands and waters spread from “sea to 

shining sea,” is a sterling example of 

what can happen when even one person 

with courage and vision is willing to stand 

in the breach for wildlife and call the 

nation’s attention to the threat at hand. 

This is our moment, as individuals and 

as a Service, to rise to the threat posed 

by climate change. If we succeed, we will 

have done our duty. If we fail, it will not 

be said of us that we were afraid to try.

Conservation Through Collaboration

As a conservation leader, the Service 

recognizes that the crisis of climate 

change also opens up great opportunities 

for those of us committed to the 

sustainability of our nation’s fish and 

wildlife resources. This crisis is an 

opportunity to expand and strengthen 

our partnerships in ways that will 

inevitably help us to more effectively 

address not just this threat to the 

future of fish and wildlife but all other 

threats, such as unsustainable land-use 

practices, degradation of water quality 

and quantity, and invasive species. It is 

an opportunity to for us to “take it to the 

next level” scientifically by building an 

unequalled network of shared scientific 

capacity, capability and knowledge that 

we can draw upon in every decision we 

make. It is an opportunity to engage 

the public as never before in facing the 

fact that our actions, individually and 

collectively, have implications for the 

future of fish, wildlife, people, and the 

planet. The crisis of climate change is, 

in the final analysis, an unparalleled 

opportunity to bring people together, 

nationally and internationally, to solve a 

world problem, not through conflict but 

through collaboration.

We acknowledge that this Strategic Plan 

and its accompanying 5-Year Action Plan 

call upon Service employees to engage 

in many new teams, partnerships, and 

assessments. We take as a given that 

it is the responsibility of leadership 

at each level in the Service to pursue 

and make available to employees the 

resources, time, training, and tools to 

accomplish our mission. It is worth 

noting that climate change is not a new 

mission; it is the lens through which we 

must accomplish the mission we already 

have. As we address climate change in 

carrying out that mission, we will seek 

Our Committed Response

Seven Bold Commitments

We will fulfill our leadership role as the 

principal national agency through which 

the Federal Government carries out its 

fish, wildlife, and habitat conservation 

mission for the American public by 

committing to seven bold undertakings 

that we believe are essential to our 

success in effectively responding to the 

threats posed by climate change. As a 

Service, we will:

1. Establish new, shared scientific and 

technical capacity within the conservation 

community in the form of Regional 

Climate Science Partnerships to acquire 

and translate climate change information 

into knowledge that together we can 

apply to better predict, understand and 

address the effects of climate change 

on fish, wildlife and their habitats at all 

spatial scales.

2. Establish Landscape Conservation 

Cooperatives that enable members of the 

conservation community to plan, design 

and deliver conservation in ways that 

integrate local, State, Tribal, regional, 

national and international efforts and 

resources, with our 150 million-acre 

National Wildlife Refuge System playing 

a role in ensuring habitat connectivity 

and conserving key landscapes and 

populations of fish and wildlife.

3. Develop new organizational and 

managerial processes and procedures 

that enable the Service to evaluate its 

actions, decisions, and expenditures 

through the lens of climate change and 

that unite us across our programs in 

a shared commitment to address the 

effects of climate change on fish and 

wildlife and their habitats.

Climate change is not 

a new mission; it is 

the lens through which 

we must accomplish 

the mission we 

already have.
14 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

Adaptation 

Adaptation is defined by the IPCC as 

“an adjustment in natural or human 

systems in response to actual or 

expected climatic stimuli or their 

effects, which moderates harm or 

exploits beneficial opportunities.” 

For the Service, adaptation is planned, 

science-based management actions, 

including regulatory and policy changes, 

that we take to help reduce the impacts 

of climate change on fish, wildlife, and 

their habitats. Adaptation forms the 

core of the Service’s response to climate 

change and is the centerpiece of our 

Strategic Plan.

Our principal approach to fish and 

wildlife adaptation will involve the 

strategic conservation of terrestrial, 

freshwater, and marine habitats within 

sustainable landscapes to achieve the 

fundamental goal of conserving target 

populations of species or suites of species 

and the ecological functions that sustain 

them. We have termed this strategic 

approach to achieving our landscape 

conservation objectives Strategic 

Habitat Conservation, or SHC.

SHC is an explicit, adaptive approach 

to conservation. It takes as a given 

that effective conservation always 

necessitates that we answer a few basic 

questions and that the same is true for 

SHC: First, what are our goals? What 

healthy populations of species do we 

seek to conserve, and what specifically 

are our targets? Second, how can 

we develop a conservation design to 

meet these goals? Third, how will we 

deliver this conservation approach? 

Fourth, what sorts of monitoring will 

be needed to determine whether we’ve 

been successful or whether we need to 

adapt our strategies? Fifth, what new 

scientific research do we need to meet 

our conservation objectives?

4. Use our informational, educational, 

training, and outreach capabilities to 

engage our employees, our conservation 

partners, business and industry, 

government and non-government 

organizations, the public, and other 

internal and external audiences in 

a dialogue about the consequences 

of climate change; and inspire their 

innovative actions to combat its effects 

on fish, wildlife, habitats, and people.

5. Become carbon neutral as an agency 

by Year 2020 and encourage other 

organizations to do the same.

6. Apply Strategic Habitat Conservation8

as the Service’s framework for landscape 

conservation.

7. Inspire and lead the conservation 

community in creating and implementing 

a shared national vision for addressing 

climate change by:

•	Facilitating development of a National 

Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation 

Strategy that would be our shared 

blueprint to guide wildlife 

adaptation partnerships over the 

next 50 – 100 years;

•	Creating a National Biological Inventory 

and Monitoring Partnership that 

facilitates a more strategic and cohesive 

use of the conservation community’s 

monitoring resources. The Partnership 

would generate empirical data needed 

to track climate change effects on the 

distribution and abundance of fish, 

wildlife and their habitats; model 

predicted population and habitat 

change; and help us determine if we 

are achieving our goals;

•	Organizing a National Climate 

Change Forum where members of 

the conservation community can 

exchange ideas and knowledge, 

network, and build the relationships 

that will ensure our success in 

addressing climate change.

Three Progressive Strategies: 

Adaptation, Mitigation, 

Engagement

Our Strategic Plan’s goals, objectives, 

and actions are positioned under three 

major strategies that correspond 

with the Service’s mission. These 

strategies are:

Adaptation: Minimizing the impact of 

climate change on fish and wildlife 

through the application of cutting-edge 

science in managing species and habitats.

Mitigation: Reducing levels of greenhouse 

gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Engagement: Joining forces with others 

to seek solutions to the challenges and 

threats to fish and wildlife conservation 

posed by climate change.

Our Committed Response

Vision without action 

is merely a dream. 

Action without vision 

just passes the time. 

Vision with action can 

change the world.

Joel Barker, living American scholar and 

futurist who was the first to popularize the 

concept of paradigm shifts in the corporate world
Our Committed Response / 15

In adopting the SHC framework to 

address climate change impacts, the 

Service acknowledges that it needs a 

structured, objective-driven process for 

biological planning and conservation 

design; predictive models for managed 

ecosystems, especially models that 

acknowledge uncertainties and challenge 

our decisions; monitoring to improve 

our understanding and management; 

and effective ways of delivering 

conservation actions on the ground 

that will typically require extensive 

partnerships and collaboration.9

The Service recognizes four basic 

approaches, or strategies, to climate 

change adaptation for fish and wildlife 

resources (based on Millar et al. 2007): 

resistance, resilience, response and 

realignment.

Resistance

Traditional and current approaches 

to conservation have been directed 

primarily toward maintaining current 

or restoring historic conditions. In many 

cases, maintaining or restoring these 

conditions means working against the 

effects of climate change as they occur 

on the landscape. Resistance adaptation 

options seek to manage fish and wildlife 

resources “to resist the influence of 

climate change or to forestall undesired 

effects of change.”10 Resistance 

actions will be most effective when the 

magnitude of climate change is small; or, 

when the magnitude is greater, “to save 

native species and habitats for the short 

term—perhaps a few decades—until 

other adaptation options are found.”11

Resisting climate changes may 

require intensive management action, 

and accelerating effort and greater 

investments over time. It also requires 

recognition that these efforts may fail 

as cumulative change in conditions may 

be so substantial that resistance is no 

longer possible.10

These ideas are not new; they are key 

components of any adaptive management 

or landscape-scale conservation strategy. 

Distilled, they are the five elements of 

Strategic Habitat Conservation:

Our Committed Response

Conserving and Managing Apache 

Trout in a Warmer, Drier Southwest

In a region already known for its 

warm temperatures and relatively low 

precipitation, aquatic species in the 

Southwest may be vulnerable due to 

climate change. What will this mean for 

the conservation and recovery of Apache 

trout? Climate models for the Southwest 

predict a continuing increase in drought 

and flood severity, warmer air and water 

temperatures, less precipitation, and more 

water loss through plant transpiration 

and ground evaporation, as well as an 

increase in events such as wildfire and 

extreme drought. Warming trends may 

alter seasonal river flows, making them 

higher during winter and lower during 

summer. Less snowfall and more rain during 

winter may result in earlier spring runoff 

(an important cue for the spring-spawning 

Apache trout). Post-wildfire flooding can 

eliminate populations and can make streams 

uninhabitable for years. We are working 

with our partners to identify strategies to 

address these new threats through habitat 

protection, restoration to increase habitat 

resiliency, and monitoring. Understanding 

how climate change may influence habitat 

for Apache trout will be critical for effective 

management and recovery of this species.

Jeremy Voeltz, Lead Biologist, Apache Trout 

Recovery Program, Pinetop, AZ

Apache trout taken from Arizona creek 

Photo: Jeremy Voeltz / usfws

Element 1: Biological Planning: 

Set targets/goals

Element 2: Conservation Design: 

Develop a plan to meet the targets/goals

Element 3: Conservation Delivery: 

Implement the plan

Element 4: Outcome-based Monitoring 

and Adaptive Management: Measure 

success and improve results

Element 5: Assumption-Based Research: 

Increase knowledge and understanding 

through iteration (repetitive looping) 

of all five elements in conjunction with 

one another.

Conservation Des

gi n

Biological Planning

Conservation Delivery

Ou

ct

ome-based Monitoring

Assumption-based Research
16 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

We must be explicit and strategic 

about which adaptation approach we 

will take in a given situation because 

an inappropriate response or a series 

of inconsistent responses can result 

in large expenditures of time, energy, 

and resources with questionable or 

insufficient outcomes. In some situations, 

our response to climate change will be 

to implement resistance adaptation 

measures, as these measures will be 

sufficient to maintain desired conditions 

in the face of ongoing climate change. 

In other situations, we will first 

implement resistance and/or resilience 

adaptation measures to maintain 

current or historical conditions for as 

long as possible, and then transition 

to response adaptation measures as 

our capacity to predict and manage 

future conditions grows. In still other 

situations, our certainty regarding future 

landscape conditions will be adequate 

to allow us to proceed immediately with 

response adaptation. For some degraded 

ecosystems we will restore current 

or historical conditions to build and 

maintain resilience, while for others we 

will implement realignment measures 

to move the systems toward anticipated 

future conditions. Our decisions about 

which adaptation approaches to use 

will be based on where we stand as 

a conservation community in terms 

of climate change knowledge and 

understanding, management technologies 

and techniques, and policy constraints 

and opportunities. We will practice 

adaptive management where possible, 

and we will apply other techniques when 

circumstances dictate. Over time, we will 

increase the certainty of our collective 

understanding and actions in regard to 

climate change impacts.

composition, and changing disturbance 

regimes...to encourage gradual 

adaptation and transition to inevitable 

change, and thereby avoid rapid 

threshold or catastrophic conversion that 

may occur otherwise.”10

Realignment

Restoration is a frequently recommended 

management approach for ecosystems 

already significantly disturbed. When 

the goal of that restoration is to realign 

a system to expected future conditions 

rather than return it to historical 

conditions, realignment adaptation 

options are used.10 According to Choi 

(2007), a “future-oriented restoration 

should (1) establish the ecosystems that 

are able to sustain in the future, not the 

past, environment; (2) have multiple 

alternative goals and trajectories for 

unpredictable endpoints; (3) focus on 

rehabilitation of ecosystem functions 

rather than re-composition of species 

or cosmetics of landscape surface; 

and (4) acknowledge its identity as 

a ‘value-laden’ applied science within 

an economically and socially acceptable 

framework.”12

Adaptation approaches to climate change 

can be implemented in a reactive manner 

or an anticipatory manner. The IPCC 

defines reactive adaptation as “adaptation 

that takes place after impacts of climate 

change have been observed,” whereas 

anticipatory adaptation is “adaptation that 

takes place before impacts of climate 

change are observed (also referred to 

as proactive adaptation).” Historically, 

climate change adaptation by human 

societies has been reactive, as is all 

biological adaptation in an evolutionary 

sense. As our understanding of climate 

change and its effects on ecosystems 

increases and uncertainty decreases, we 

anticipate implementing increasingly 

more anticipatory adaptation approaches.

Resilience

Resilience is the ability of a natural 

system to return to a desired condition 

after disturbance, either naturally 

or with management assistance. 

Resilience adaptation options, then, 

are management actions that improve 

the capacity of ecosystems to return to 

desired conditions after disturbance. 

Fostering resilience is probably the 

most frequently suggested approach 

to adaptation found in climate change 

literature.10 Management practices 

that facilitate resilience are similar to 

those used to resist change (e.g., habitat 

restoration, habitat management with 

fire or through invasive removal), but 

are usually applied more broadly and 

are specifically aimed at coping with 

disturbance.10 Maintaining or improving 

habitat or ecosystem resilience may 

become more difficult and require more 

intensive management as changes 

in climate accumulate over time.10

Resilience adaptation does not facilitate 

the transition to new conditions that are 

likely to result from climate change.11

Thus, some authorities indicate that 

resilience options are best undertaken 

in projects that are short term or under 

ecosystem conditions that are relatively 

insensitive to climate change effects.10

Response

Another approach to climate change 

is to manage toward future, and often 

less certain, landscape conditions by 

predicting and working with the effects 

of climate change. Response adaptation 

options facilitate the transition of 

ecosystems from current, natural states 

to new conditions brought about by a 

changing climate. Response management 

actions “mimic, assist or enable ongoing 

natural adaptive processes, such 

as species dispersal and migration, 

population mortality and colonization, 

changes in community/ecosystem 

Our Committed Response
Our Committed Response / 17

basically the process by which CO2 from 

the atmosphere is taken up by plants 

through photosynthesis and stored as 

carbon in biomass (e.g., tree trunks and 

roots) or stored as organic carbon in 

soils. Sequestering carbon in vegetation, 

such as bottomland hardwood forests, 

can often restore or improve habitat and 

directly benefit fish and wildlife.

We will be aggressive in sequestering 

carbon and using best practices to 

manage our lands, meet our stewardship 

responsibilities, and manage our 

facilities, vehicles and vessels, travel, 

Mitigation

Mitigation is defined by the IPCC 

as “human intervention to reduce 

the sources or enhance the sinksj of 

greenhouse gases.” Mitigation involves 

reducing our carbon footprint by using 

less energy, reducing our consumption, 

and appropriately altering our landmanagement practices, such as wildlife 

food production. Our goal is to achieve 

carbon neutrality as an organization by 

the Year 2020.

Mitigation is also achieved through 

biological carbon sequestration, which is 

and purchases and acquisitions so that 

we become carbon neutral by 2020. 

Our success in pursuing and achieving 

carbon neutrality will help us to model 

appropriate organizational behaviors 

and to participate with the conservation 

community in catalyzing action to reduce 

greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. 

In addition, we expect our mitigation 

successes to influence local, regional, 

national, and international land-use 

and energy policies and actions and 

to further reduce greenhouse gas 

emissions, thereby reducing the impacts 

of climate change on fish, wildlife, and 

their habitats.

Engagement 

Engagement is reaching out to Service 

employees; our local, national and 

international partners in the public and 

private sectors; our key constituencies 

and stakeholders; and everyday 

citizens to join forces with them in 

seeking solutions to the challenges and 

threats to fish and wildlife conservation 

posed by climate change. By building 

knowledge and sharing information 

in a comprehensive and integrated 

way, the Service and our partners 

and stakeholders will increase our 

understanding of global climate change 

impacts and use our combined expertise 

and creativity to help wildlife resources 

adapt in a climate-changed world. 

Through engagement, Service employees 

will be better equipped to address 

climate change in their day-to-day 

responsibilities; America’s citizens will be 

inspired to participate in a new era 

of collaborative environmental 

stewardship, working to reduce their 

carbon footprints and supporting wildlife 

adaptation efforts; and leaders at the 

local, regional, national, and international 

levels will be motivated to craft and 

support legislation and policy that 

address climate change and consider its 

impacts to fish and wildlife.

Climate Change and SHC’s Five Elements

Climate change is integrally tied to each of SHC’s five elements. For example, setting 

realistic and achievable biological targets requires careful consideration of the effects of 

climate change; otherwise, we could unwittingly set species goals that rely on locations 

that won’t be available as habitat in the future. The impacts from sea level rise provide a 

clear example: We anticipate that some of today’s valuable coastal habitat will be inundated 

in the years ahead and, thus, unable to support certain wildlife species. The task before 

us is to anticipate these changes and incorporate them into our goal-setting, as well as 

our conservation planning and delivery. We must ask ourselves such fundamental 

questions as, “Are we conserving the right places based on the changes we anticipate 

from climate change?”

Climate change also makes monitoring and adaptive management more important than 

ever. The predicted impacts from climate change are wide-ranging and their timing is highly 

uncertain. We need monitoring to understand the rate and magnitude of climate change; 

but more importantly, we need monitoring to understand the effectiveness of our strategies in 

the face of climate change and other threats. Only then will we be able to effectively modify 

our strategies over time.

Climate change also must be squarely factored into our research efforts. We must challenge 

ourselves to envision a future environmental baseline that takes into account the changes in 

the landscape caused by climate change and other ecosystem change-drivers, such as land 

use practices. Integrating climate change into our research priorities will help us to create 

conservation strategies that stand the test of time.

Paul Souza, Field Supervisor, South Florida Ecological Services Field Office, Vero Beach, FL

Our Committed Response

j Sinks are the removal or sequestration of greenhouse gases.
18 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

With regard to mitigation, we will 

begin immediately and work aggressively 

to reduce our carbon footprint to 

achieve carbon neutrality. Over time, 

we anticipate that we will build a strong 

mitigation consciousness and track 

record in our organization; consequently, 

our mitigation efforts will plateau and 

will be maintained at that level for 

the long term.

With regard to engagement, we will 

increase our internal efforts immediately 

so that our employees can acquire the 

additional knowledge and skills they need 

to address climate change as a central 

focus of our programs and activities. 

At the same time, we will increase our 

external engagement to learn from 

others and help build public support 

nationally and internationally for the 

Service’s adaptation and mitigation 

activities. In addition, we will encourage 

members of the public to join us in 

reducing their carbon footprints.

Adaptation, Mitigation, Engagement: 

A Balanced Approach

We will use a progressive, balanced 

approach in undertaking adaptation, 

mitigation and engagement. Goals and 

objectives in this plan will be stepped 

down to specific actions that will form 

our near-term, 5-Year Action Plan for 

addressing climate change. We will 

progress in a manner that will reflect 

increasing certaintyk about what actions 

we should take and when we should 

take them.

We will increase our adaptation efforts 

significantly in the near term as we 

respond to increasing climate change 

impacts. Our initial emphasis will likely 

be on resistance and resilience types 

of adaptation, as we work to build 

resilience in ecosystems through our 

management efforts and, in some cases, 

to buy additional time to increase our 

certainty regarding future landscape 

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.

Our Committed Response

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.

...the Service and 

our partners and 

stakeholders will 

increase our 

understanding of 

global climate change 

impacts and use our 

combined expertise 

and creativity to help 

wildlife resources 

adapt in a climatechanged world.

Minette Layne / flickr

Global climate change may be disrupting 

migration patterns of species such as 

hummingbirds that depend on seasonal cues 

for their survival.
Strategic Goals & Objectives / 19

(6) considers adaptation strategies 

being developed for other sectors 

(such as agriculture, human health and 

transportation) so that the strategies 

complement one another and minimize 

conflicts; and 

(7) identifies key ecological processes 

and methods to conserve priority species 

and habitats.

For the implementation of landscapescale conservation, the strategy will 

place particular emphasis on ecological 

systems and function; strengthened 

observational systems; model-based 

projections; species-habitat linkages; 

risk assessment; and active and passive 

adaptive management. The strategy 

will include a national strategy for 

monitoring species and habitats that 

are most vulnerable to climate change. 

It will also outline appropriate scientific 

support (including inventory, monitoring, 

research, and modeling) to inform 

management decisions; the need for 

and importance of collaboration and 

interdependency; and the financial 

resources (including grants, appropriated 

funds, and private contributions) needed 

to implement decisions.

A National Fish and Wildlife Climate 

Adaptation Strategy will cover the 

length and breadth of the United 

States, from the Pacific Islands to the 

eastern seaboard and from Alaska to 

the Caribbean; and will extend beyond 

our borders to encompass habitats used 

by cross-border species (e.g., those 

shared with Canada and Mexico)l

, as 

well as areas in the Western Hemisphere 

associated with many migratory 

species (e.g., Central and South 

American wintering areas of migratory 

songbirds)m.

and international governments and 

organizations to develop the strategy. 

The goal is to have a completed strategy 

by the end of 2012, with implementation 

to begin soon thereafter. A National 

Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation 

Strategy is likely to consist of an 

agreement that identifies and defines 

integrated approaches to maintaining 

key terrestrial, freshwater and marine 

ecosystems and functions needed to 

sustain fish and wildlife resources in 

the face of accelerating climate change. 

As the strategy is developed and 

implemented, we will work to ensure 

that it:

(1) embraces the philosophy that 

maintaining healthy fish and wildlife 

populations and ecosystem sustainability 

are interdependent goals; 

(2) adopts landscape-scale approaches 

that integrate science and management;

(3) recognizes appropriate roles for all 

four adaptation approaches (resistance, 

resilience, response, realignment);

(4) reflects the uncertainty associated 

with adaptation planning, but also 

acknowledges that, over time, we will 

be better able to be anticipatory and 

proactive in our approach to adaptation;

(5) addresses species and habitat 

priorities that are based on scientific 

assessments and risk-based predictions 

of vulnerability to changing climate;

Goals and objectives will turn our strategic vision into action

and position the Service as a responsible leader and creative partner in 

facilitating wildlife adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, and engagement 

with others to address the effects of accelerating climate change on fish and 

wildlife and their habitats. Action items needed to achieve these goals and 

objectives are included in the appendix document, the 5-Year Action Plan.

Strategic Goals & Objectives

Adaptation

Goal 1

We will work with partners to 

develop and implement a National 

Fish and Wildlife Climate 

Adaptation Strategy.

Objective 1.1: Inspire, Organize, and Carry 

Out a Collaborative Process that Brings 

Together Diverse Interests To Develop a 

National Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation 

Strategy; and Fully Integrate Resource 

Management Agencies and Organizations 

from Around the Country and Internationally 

into the Process.

Climate legislation proposed in recent 

sessions of Congress includes provisions 

for a national strategy for fish and 

wildlife adaptation to climate change. 

We view this strategy as the most 

consequential and crucial conservation 

endeavor of the 21st century. The 

Department of the Interior, with the 

Service as lead agency, and the Council 

on Environmental Quality are leading 

the effort to develop a National Fish and 

Wildlife Climate Adaptation Strategy. 

We are committed to an intensive, 

3-year collaboration with Federal, State, 

Tribal, and local governments, private 

landowners, conservation organizations, 

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

Objective 2.2: Develop Landscape 

Conservation Cooperatives to Acquire 

Biological Planning and Conservation 

Design Expertise

To promote wildlife adaptation to 

accelerating climate change, we need the 

capability to develop, test, implement, 

and monitor conservation strategies 

that will be responsive to the dynamic 

landscape changes resulting from climate 

change. These strategies must be 

model-based and spatially explicit, 

allowing us to effectively apply our 

emerging climate knowledge to predict 

habitat and species changes and to 

design our conservation actions to 

target impacts. To accomplish this, 

we will develop biological planning, 

conservation design, and research 

and monitoring expertise across the 

Service and among diverse partners, 

as defined in our Strategic Habitat 

Conservation framework.

We will work interdependently with 

partners to develop this expertise 

within Landscape Conservation 

Cooperatives (LCCs). LCCs are formal 

partnerships between Federal and 

State agencies, Tribes, non-government 

organizations, universities and others 

to share conservation science capacity 

(including staff) to address landscapescale stressors, including habitat 

fragmentation, genetic isolation, 

spread of invasive species, and water 

scarcity, all of which are accelerated by 

climate change. LCCs are envisioned 

as the centerpiece of the Service’s 

and the Department’s (via Secretarial 

Order 3289) informed management 

response to climate change impacts on 

natural resources.

the government, conservation, and 

academic communities, a mechanism 

is needed that will allow them to 

effectively collaborate with one another 

on a regional basis, e.g., through virtual 

networks. The U.S. Geological Survey 

is well positioned to coordinate such 

Regional Climate Science Partnerships 

through its Climate Change and Wildlife 

Science Center and the Departmental 

Climate Science Centers that are being 

established pursuant to Secretarial 

Order 3289. We will help the U.S. 

Geological Survey and the Department 

with the development of these Regional 

Climate Science Partnerships to support 

a broad spectrum of natural resource 

management activities. 

Climate science and modeling 

expertise will:

(1) make global climate model outputs 

usable at multiple planning scales 

through downscaling approaches (either 

dynamical or statistical); 

(2) integrate global or downscaled 

climate model outputs with ecological 

and land-use change models to project 

future changes in the distribution and 

abundance of fish and wildlife resulting 

from climate and land-use changes; 

(3) identify and predict climate change 

thresholds for key species and habitats; 

(4) facilitate research to address key 

uncertainties in applying climate change 

science to fish and wildlife conservation; 

and 

(5) support regional or local climate 

monitoring programs. Currently, this 

expertise is not readily available to 

managers. Without it, they cannot 

develop successful adaptation strategies 

for fish and wildlife.

In short, a National Fish and Wildlife 

Adaptation Strategy will be our shared 

blueprint to guide wildlife adaptation 

partnerships over the next 50–100 years. 

The strategy will enable the national 

and international conservation 

communities to harness collective 

expertise, authorities, and abilities to 

define and prioritize a shared set of 

conservation goals and objectives, as 

well as to prescribe a plan of integrated, 

concerted action.

Goal 2

We will develop long-term capacity 

for biological planning and 

conservation design and apply 

it to drive conservation at broad, 

landscape scales.

Objective 2.1: Access Regional Climate 

Science and Modeling Expertise through 

Regional Climate Science Partnerships

Successful conservation strategies will 

require an understanding of climate 

change, the ability to predict how that 

change will affect fish and wildlife at 

multiple scales, and the skill to translate 

this understanding into useful tools for 

landscape-level conservation design. 

We need access to experts in climate 

science and modeling who have the 

capability of putting climate data and 

projections into forms that are useful 

for biological planning and conservation 

design. This expertise can be found 

within such organizations as the U.S. 

Geological Survey, the National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration, 

universities, and some non-governmental 

organizations. Because these experts 

tend to be widely dispersed across 

Strategic Goals & Objectives
3

6 13

7

9

1

5

16

4

15

8

10

14

2

11

12

Papahānaumokuākea

Marine National Monument

International Date Line International Date Line

Hawaii

Samoa

Guam

Micronesia

Wake Island

Marshall Islands

Jarvis Island Howland Island

21 Johnston Atoll

19

18

20

11

17

20

17

12

1

16 13

15

3 8

5

6

11

2

21

7

4

10

9

14

18

19

11

1. Appalachian

2. California

3. Desert

4. Eastern Tallgrass Prairie & Big Rivers

5. Great Basin

6. Great Northern

7. Great Plains

8. Gulf Coast Prairie

9. Gulf Coastal Plains & Ozarks

10. North Atlantic

11. North Pacific

12. Peninsular Florida

13. Plains & Prairie Potholes

14. South Atlantic

15. Southern Rockies

16. Upper Midwest & Great Lakes

17. Aleutian & Bering Sea Islands

18. Arctic

19. Northwestern Interior Forest

20. Western Alaska

21. Pacific Islands

Unclassified

Interim Geographic Framework for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives 

Strategic Goals & Objectives / 21

Objective 2.3: Develop Expertise In and 

Conduct Adaptation Planning for Key Species 

and Habitats

Adaptation planning will fall within the 

purview of LCCs, as well as individual 

Service programs. In addition to those 

generally used in SHC, new tools will be 

required for development of successful 

climate change adaptation plans. These 

tools will include species and habitat 

vulnerability assessments; planning 

and decision-support tools, such as 

scenario planning; the use of highresolution climate projections to drive 

important ecological and biophysical 

response models; risk assessments; 

and green infrastructure planning. To 

facilitate adaptation planning within 

and across LCCs, we will assemble 

available information and provide 

With the expertise available through 

LCCs, we and our partners will 

assemble climate, land-cover, land-use, 

hydrological and other relevant data 

in spatially explicit contexts to develop 

explicit, predictive and measurable 

biological objectives to guide landscapescale conservation design. We will use 

results from population-habitat and 

ecological models, statistical analyses, 

and geographic information systems 

to design conservation strategies that 

drive conservation delivery at landscape 

scales. We will develop scientifically 

valid, collaborative population and 

habitat monitoring programs that are 

linked to and support agency decisionmaking processes. We will develop 

and facilitate research projects 

focused explicitly on the documented 

assumptions and uncertainties 

resulting from biological planning 

and conservation design activities.

The precise organizational structure 

for LCCs will vary based on the shared 

needs of cooperators. Rather than create 

a new conservation infrastructure from 

the ground up, LCCs will build upon the 

science and the management priorities 

of existing partnerships, such as fish 

habitat partnerships, migratory bird 

joint ventures and flyway councils, as 

well as species- and geographic-based 

partnerships. All LCCs will be guided 

by a steering committee composed 

of representatives of partner 

organizations, and all will be focused 

on defined geographic areas. The 

Service has developed an Interim 

Geographic Framework that will form 

the basis for the nationwide network 

of LCCs. Ultimately, 21 LCCs will be 

established.

Strategic Goals & Objectives

Albers Equal Area Conic 

Produced by FWS, IRTM, 2010
22 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

Objective 2.5: Provide Requested Support to 

State and Tribal Managers to Address Climate 

Change Issues that Affect Fish and Wildlife 

Service Trust Resources

Many States are already working 

to address climate change in their 

State Wildlife Action Plans and other 

management plans, and Tribes are 

likely to undertake similar measures 

in their resource management 

plans. When requested, we will work 

collaboratively with States and Tribes to 

share information and to support their 

efforts to incorporate climate change 

considerations into their fish and wildlife 

management plans and programs.

Objective 2.6: Evaluate Fish and Wildlife 

Service Laws, Regulations, and Policies 

to Identify Barriers To and Opportunities 

for Successful Implementation of 

Climate Change Actions

We will review the Service’s laws, 

regulations, and policies to determine 

what, if any, changes may be necessary 

to support effective adaptation and 

mitigation responses to climate change. 

We will focus particularly on determining 

the need to develop new policies (e.g., 

for managed relocationn) and necessary 

revisions of existing policies (e.g., what 

constitutes native, invasive, or exotic 

species). In addition, we will identify 

new (or revisions to) laws, regulations, 

policies, guidance, and other protocols 

necessary to provide incentives or 

eliminate barriers to our efforts to 

mitigate climate change by reducing our 

carbon footprint.

Objective 2.4: Incorporate Climate Change in 

Service Activities and Decisions

We will consider actual and projected 

climate change impacts to fish 

and wildlife populations and their 

habitats in Service planning, decisionmaking, consultation and evaluation, 

management, and restoration efforts. 

Planning efforts will include resource 

planning (e.g., recovery plans, habitat 

conservation plans, fish habitat 

plans, migratory bird plans, natural 

resource damage restoration plans, 

and Comprehensive Conservation 

Plans); operations planning (e.g., 

facility maintenance, construction, and 

equipment and fleet management); and 

administrative planning (e.g., workforce 

planning, and information technology 

management planning). Decision-making 

includes Endangered Species Act listing 

decisions and injurious wildlife listing 

decisions. Consultation and evaluation 

includes Endangered Species Act Section 

7 consultations and related documents, 

such as biological opinions, Fish and 

Wildlife Coordination Act evaluations, 

and environmental assessments. We will 

prepare guidance that can be used by our 

various programs in their assessment of 

climate change impacts.

We will review all Service grant 

programs and modify grant criteria, 

as necessary and legally allowable, to 

direct more funding to projects that 

specifically address climate change 

adaptation, mitigation, or engagement. 

Where modification of grant criteria is 

not legally allowable, such as PittmanRobertson and Dingell-Johnson grants 

made through the Wildlife and Sport 

Fish Restoration programs, we will work 

with partners to encourage grantees to 

consider climate change initiatives.

recommendations on best planning 

practices. This may involve providing a 

variety of acceptable options to use in 

different situations and the pros and cons 

of each; and it will include identifying any 

crucial gaps in data, capacity, or training 

that need to be addressed.

One fundamental step in adaptation 

planning is determining which species 

and habitats are most vulnerable to 

accelerating climate change (“climatevulnerable”). As previously defined, 

vulnerability 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. We will work with 

partners and with regional and field 

staff to develop methodologies to assess 

species and habitat vulnerability and 

to test and apply these methodologies 

on the ground. Climate vulnerability 

assessments will be used in conjunction 

with analyses of non-climate stressors 

(such as water quantity and quality 

for aquatic species, spread of invasive 

species, impacts of fire regimes, exposure 

to contaminants, and changes in land 

use) to assess the overall vulnerability of 

species and habitats.

Strategic Goals & Objectives

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.
Strategic Goals & Objectives / 23

boundaries; or other conservation 

entities, such as land facetsp 14. Through 

conservation designs developed by LCCs, 

we will work with partners to identify 

needed habitat protection and landscapescale habitat linkages and corridors. 

By joining the habitat protection and 

management capacities of the Service 

(e.g., National Wildlife Refuge System, 

Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, 

Endangered Species Program, National 

Fish Habitat Plan, National Fish Passage 

Program, Neotropical Migratory Bird 

Conservation Act, and North American 

Wetlands Conservation Act) with those 

of our partners, we will help build 

this connectivity within and between 

landscapes.

We must also strive to maintain 

ecosystem integrity and resilience by 

developing new and innovative ways of 

protecting and restoring key ecological 

processes to sustain fish and wildlife. 

Processes such as pollination, seed 

dispersal, nutrient cycling, natural 

disturbance cycles, predator-prey 

relations, and others must be part of the 

natural landscapes we seek to maintain 

or restore. These processes are likely to 

function more optimally in landscapes 

composed of large habitat blocks 

connected by well-placed corridors. 

We will work with partners to identify 

how key ecological processes are likely 

to be affected by climate change, 

and to determine how management 

actions might help maintain or restore 

key ecological processes. We will also 

conduct research (see Objective 4.4) 

and create demonstration projects, 

particularly on Land Management 

Research and Demonstration areasq

on National Wildlife Refuges, to 

evaluate management actions designed 

to maintain or restore key ecological 

processes.

species and designation or revision of 

critical habitat under the Endangered 

Species Act; help us to revise recovery 

efforts for already-listed species; and 

help us to revise various species-related 

conservation plans, such as the North 

American Waterbird Conservation 

Plan. LCCs will be largely responsible 

for identifying priority species through 

vulnerability assessments; but other 

programs, such as Endangered Species 

and Migratory Birds, will also be involved 

through their program activities. For 

example, the Migratory Birds Program 

was instrumental in producing The State 

of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate 

Change, which has helped focus attention 

on climate-vulnerable bird species.

Objective 3.2: Promote Habitat 

Connectivity and Integrity

Climate change is contributing to the 

loss, degradation, and fragmentation of 

current habitats and will likely create 

novel habitats as species redistribute 

themselves across the landscape. In 

addition, climate change is interacting 

with non-climate stressors—such 

as land-use change, wildfire, urban 

and suburban development, and 

agriculture—to fragment habitats 

at ever-increasing rates. Protecting 

and restoring contiguous blocks of 

unfragmented habitat; and using linkages 

and corridors to enhance connectivity 

between habitat blocks (in particular, 

protected areas such as National 

Wildlife Refuges) will likely facilitate the 

movement of fish and wildlife species 

responding to climate change. Novel 

conservation measures that address 

the dynamic nature of climate change 

effects on habitat may also be needed13, 

among them, long-term climate refugia; 

protected habitat areas with dynamic 

Goal 3

We will plan and deliver landscape 

conservation actions that support 

climate change adaptations by 

fish and wildlife of ecological and 

societal significance.

Our long-term approach to climate 

change will be guided by a National 

Fish and Wildlife Climate Adaptation 

Strategy, a coordinated, multiorganization plan for landscape 

conservation across the United States, 

portions of Mexico and Canada, and 

certain, more distant areas within 

Central and South America.

We anticipate that a strategy will be 

completed by the end of 2012. In the 

meantime, there are many on-the-ground 

efforts we can take with our partners to 

begin the process of facilitating fish and 

wildlife adaptation to climate change. As 

we implement these near-term efforts, 

we will evaluate success and failure 

and use this information to inform 

development and implementation of the 

national strategy.

Objective 3.1: Take Conservation Action for 

Climate-Vulnerable Species

We will rely on results of our 

vulnerability assessments and on our 

field expertise in focusing our efforts 

to protect species that are particularly 

vulnerable to climate change, such 

as sea ice-dependent or sky islando

animal species and a number of rare 

and/or endemic plant species. Timely 

identification of climate-vulnerable 

species and habitats is critical, as it 

will allow us to design and implement 

proactive conservation measures; help 

us to make decisions regarding listing 

Strategic Goals & Objectives

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

mid-Atlantic and Southeast) and the 

Gulf Coast, are particularly susceptible 

to sea level rise, as well as to increasing 

intensity and frequency of storms and 

storm surges. To begin planning for 

future management, we must understand 

the vulnerability of our coastal resources 

to sea level rise and storms. We will 

conduct sea level rise modeling (e.g., 

Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model r) 

for all coastal refuges and expand 

modeling to additional coastal areas, 

as practicable, to determine the 

vulnerability of these areas. We will 

work with partners to develop new 

climate-change adaptation strategies for 

coastal management and restoration. 

We will implement these strategies as 

part of landscape conservation designs 

developed by LCCs. National Wildlife 

Refuge planners will use the results 

of vulnerability assessments to design 

adaptation strategies appropriate for 

their respective refuges.

Marine ecosystems, especially coral 

reefs, are among the most biologically 

diverse ecosystems in the world. Marine 

resources are threatened by upper-ocean 

warming, sea-ice retreat, sea level rise, 

ocean acidification, altered freshwater 

distributions, and perhaps even strong 

storms and altered storm tracks, all due 

to rising levels of atmospheric carbon 

dioxide and climate change. We must 

determine the vulnerability to climate 

change of our marine National Wildlife 

Refuges, National Monuments, other 

protected areas, and other priority 

marine resources as a result of climate 

change. We will work with partners to 

develop and implement new climate 

change adaptation strategies for marine 

management and restoration.

and allocations to meet human needs 

for water. As these human adaptations 

are crafted, we will work with partners, 

including water management agencies, 

to ensure water resources of adequate 

quantity and quality to support biological 

objectives for fish and wildlife are 

incorporated. This will be a critical 

issue for our National Wildlife Refuges 

and National Fish Hatcheries and our 

conservation efforts for threatened and 

endangered species, migratory birds, 

and fish and aquatic species. We will 

inventory and monitor water quantity 

and quality, especially relative to 

National Wildlife Refuges (as described 

in the Refuge System’s draft Strategic 

Plan for Inventories and Monitoring 

on National Wildlife Refuges: Adapting 

to Environmental Change). We will 

work to acquire, manage, and protect 

adequate supplies of clean water, and to 

ensure water management authorities 

provide adequate in-stream flows to 

address priority needs as determined 

by vulnerability assessments. We will 

work to improve water quality, e.g., by 

reducing environmental contaminant 

loads or reducing stream temperatures 

through riparian restoration.

Objective 3.5: Conserve Coastal and 

Marine Resources

Coastal habitats, including estuaries, 

wetlands (freshwater, brackish, and 

saline), and beaches, are among the 

most important habitats for fish and 

wildlife, including a myriad of migratory 

bird species and many threatened or 

endangered species, such as marine 

turtles and manatees. As such, a large 

number of our National Wildlife Refuges 

are along coastlines. Coastal habitats, 

especially those in the East (particularly 

Objective 3.3: Reduce Non-Climate Change 

Ecosystem Stressors

Successful adaptation strategies for fish 

and wildlife will require understanding 

and reducing the combined and 

cumulative effects of both climaterelated and non-climate stressors. 

Non-climate stressors include land-use 

changes (e.g., agricultural conversion, 

energy development, urbanization); 

invasive species; unnatural wildfire; 

contaminants; and wildlife crime. 

Reducing these non-climate stressors 

is a fundamental objective of many 

current Service programs and activities; 

however, in the face of climate change, 

it essential that we and our partners 

be strategic in targeting our efforts 

where they will do the most good in 

conserving what we identify as priority 

species and landscapes. We can no 

longer afford to simply work to reduce 

non-climate stressors on an ad hoc or 

opportunistic basis. Our work must be 

targeted to reduce specific stressors 

that our predictive tools indicate will 

be key limiting factors in an overall 

adaptation strategy for priority 

species or landscapes. Reducing these 

key non-climate stressors will be an 

important component of the conservation 

designs for priority landscapes that are 

developed by LCCs.

Objective 3.4: Identify and Fill Priority 

Freshwater Needs

Water is the key to life, and climate 

change will alter the distribution, 

abundance, and quality of water by 

affecting precipitation, air and water 

temperatures, and snowmelt. Climate 

change will drive adaptations of our 

nation’s water supply infrastructure 

Strategic Goals & Objectives

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.
Strategic Goals & Objectives / 25

shared expertise within LCCs; and we 

will be an objective source of information 

on how to avoid, minimize, and off-set 

those effects. We will work with industry, 

agencies, and other stakeholders to 

facilitate siting, construction, operation 

and maintenance of renewable energy 

projects that explicitly evaluate and avoid 

or otherwise compensate for significant 

impacts to fish and wildlife.

Objective 3.9: Foster International 

Collaboration for Landscape Conservation

To fully succeed in conserving the fish 

and wildlife resources for which we have 

responsibility in the face of accelerating 

climate change, we must look beyond our 

borders to the rest of North America, 

the western hemisphere and, indeed, the 

whole world. We believe that strategic 

landscape conservation—landscape 

conservation that factors in climate 

change as well as non-climate 

stressors—will be the key to conserving 

needed habitats beyond our borders, 

whether for migratory songbirds in 

Central America, jaguars along the U.S.-

Mexican border, tigers in Southeast Asia, 

or elephants in Africa. We will foster 

international landscape conservation 

on the North American continent 

by working through the Trilateral 

Committee, the Western Hemisphere 

Migratory Species Initiative, the 

Wildlife Without Borderss regional 

programs for Mexico and for Latin 

America and the Caribbean, and 

the Neotropical Migratory Bird 

Conservation Act grants program. 

In other regions of the world, we will 

work through our Wildlife Without 

Borders and Migratory Bird programs 

to promote landscape conservation to 

reduce climate change effects on priority 

species and landscapes.

Objective 3.7: Reduce Susceptibility to 

Diseases, Pathogens, and Pests

Climate-induced stress will compromise 

species’ resistance to diseases and pests 

and will likely increase mortality. In 

addition, changing climate will allow 

pathogens and pests to spread to areas 

where they are currently limited by 

climate (e.g., by low temperatures in the 

winter). Working with our partners and 

using the existing disease surveillance 

and diagnostic infrastructure, we will 

improve surveillance and response 

capabilities; improve predictions of 

climate change impacts on the biology of 

wildlife and vector species; and identify 

and implement management measures to 

reduce wildlife vulnerabilities to climate 

change and susceptibility to disease, 

pathogens, and pests.

Objective 3.8: Address Fish and Wildlife 

Needs in Renewable Energy Development

As wildlife management professionals, 

we believe that renewable sources of 

energy are a key element in mitigating 

emissions of greenhouse gases, which 

are the root cause of the climate crisis 

and its consequences for fish and wildlife. 

While the expansion of renewable 

energy development will contribute to 

the nation’s energy needs with lower 

net atmospheric release of greenhouse 

gases per unit of energy as compared 

to nonrenewable sources, we recognize 

that such development will result in 

impacts to fish and wildlife. We will 

facilitate balanced renewable energy 

development by providing timely and 

reliable information on impacts to fish 

and wildlife. We will consider renewable 

energy project proposals in the context 

of their expected cumulative impacts to 

fish and wildlife populations, applying the 

Objective 3.6: Manage Genetic Resources

Conservation genetics helps the Service 

and its partners better measure and 

assess the taxonomic status and genetic 

relationships within and among species 

of fish, wildlife and plants. Genetic 

variation provides the raw material for 

species adaptation and evolutionary 

flexibility in response to environmental 

change. Maintaining genetic diversity 

is essential for maintaining healthy, 

resilient populations of fish, wildlife and 

plants that are more able to cope with 

the stressors of climate change. Often 

as genetic diversity declines, a species’ 

ability to adapt to change decreases and 

extinction risk increases. Furthermore, 

when habitat shifts occur, managers can 

use genetic information to help conserve 

the genetic diversity anda variability 

within a species.

We must increase our capacity to 

gather, interpret, and use genetic 

information for the conservation of 

climate-vulnerable species. We will 

strengthen and expand our genetic 

analysis and cryopreservation 

capabilities. We will continue to expand 

our partnerships with States, zoos, 

botanical gardens, and other partners to 

develop other effective ways to manage 

genetic resources of both captive and 

wild fish and wildlife populations and to 

build the policy framework and decision 

support needed to determine when and 

how to apply these genetic management 

measures in a transparent, responsible, 

and ethical manner.

Strategic Goals & Objectives

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

We will work with such partners as the 

U.S. Geological Survey, the National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

and the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration to define and implement 

abiotic remote-sensing monitoring 

priorities. We will support existing 

physical science and remote-sensing 

monitoring programs that have proven 

track records and are relevant to climate 

change (e.g., Remote Automated Weather 

Stations and the Terrestrial Observation 

and Prediction System).

Objective 4.3: Develop Research and 

Monitoring Capability for Use in Landscape 

Conservation

Monitoring and research are key 

components of the Service’s SHC 

framework. By measuring the effect of 

conservation efforts against explicitly 

predicted outcomes, managers can 

learn from both success and failure, 

thereby increasing the probability of 

success in future actions. By identifying 

uncertainties and assumptions in the 

models we use to develop biological 

objectives, we can prioritize and target 

key uncertainties and assumptions for 

research. We will develop appropriate 

research and monitoring capability, 

primarily within LCCs, to ensure that the 

adaptation efforts we undertake within 

the SHC framework are evaluated and 

that key uncertainties and assumptions 

are addressed through targeted 

research. We will provide relevant 

education and training opportunities to 

Service managers and ensure that this 

research and monitoring component is 

incorporated into all of our landscape 

conservation efforts.

We will work with such partners as the 

U.S. Geological Survey and the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration 

to define and implement remote-sensing 

monitoring programs for key biotic 

resources (e.g., vegetative cover, invasive 

species spread, wildfire frequency and 

aerial extent, plant phenology and 

primary productivity). We will support 

existing remote-sensing monitoring 

programs that have proven track 

records and are relevant to climate 

change (e.g., Terrestrial Observation 

and Prediction System).

We will incorporate new inventory and 

monitoring approaches as necessary and 

practical to achieve our goals.

Objective 4.2: Promote Abiotic 

Monitoring Programs

Monitoring of abiotic resources and 

their change will be a key component 

of a comprehensive national monitoring 

program, particularly for larger 

landscapes. Within the National Wildlife 

Refuge System, we will: (1) work 

with partners to identify key abiotic 

resources that should be monitored, and 

assemble key existing abiotic data sets 

needed by Refuge System managers 

for comprehensive conservation 

planning; and (2) complete baseline 

hydrogeomorphic analyses at selected 

refuges (see the Refuge System’s 

draft Strategic Plan for Inventories 

and Monitoring on National Wildlife 

Refuges: Adapting to Environmental 

Change).

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.

Objective 4.1: Develop a National Biological 

Inventory and Monitoring Partnership

Biological inventory and monitoring are 

essential tools to understand the status 

and trends of fish and wildlife, as well as 

to help determine large-scale patterns 

of ecosystem health and response to 

climate change. To address this need, 

we will lead efforts to develop a national, 

integrated inventory and monitoring 

partnership to monitor continental 

changes in key populations and biological 

diversity. Our efforts will be driven by 

the inventory and monitoring priorities 

developed by LCCs and the National 

Wildlife Refuge System, as detailed in 

the Refuge System’s draft Strategic 

Plan for Inventories and Monitoring 

on National Wildlife Refuges: Adapting 

to Environmental Change, as well as 

priorities developed collaboratively 

among many agencies within a National 

Fish and Wildlife Adaptation Strategy. 

We will leverage our efforts with those 

of existing Federal monitoring programs 

with proven track records and relevance 

to climate change (e.g., the National 

Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring 

Program, the Forest Service’s Forest 

Inventory and Analysis Program, and 

the U.S. Geological Survey’s National 

Phenology Network).

Strategic Goals & Objectives
Strategic Goals & Objectives / 27

Mitigation

Goal 5

We will change our business 

practices to achieve carbon 

neutrality by the Year 2020.

Objective 5.1: Assess and Reduce the Carbon 

Footprint of the Service’s Facilities, Vehicles, 

Workforce, and Operations

We are committed as an agency to 

achieving carbon neutrality by the Year 

2020. This will require that we reduce 

the energy use and carbon footprint 

of our buildings, facilities, vehicle 

fleet, workforce, and operations to the 

maximum extent possible. We have 

established a Carbon Neutral Team 

to carry out our ongoing efforts, to 

inventory, monitor, and evaluate our 

energy usage. By implementing best 

practices such as those identified in 

Service policy, expanding these efforts, 

and embarking upon new and innovative 

efforts across the Service, we anticipate 

success in reducing our carbon footprint 

by 5–10 percent annually between 

now and 2020. Example strategies are 

managing our fleet through life-cycle 

planning, including provisions in facility 

agreements and leases that promote 

conservation of energy and water, and 

ensuring that energy-related deferred 

maintenance activities are identified 

in the Service Asset Maintenance 

Management System. We anticipate 

that the reductions achieved, combined 

with our carbon sequestration and, 

perhaps, offsets, will lead us to carbon 

neutrality by 2020.

Objective 4.4: Further Develop 

Collaborative Research Partnerships

We will enhance existing and develop 

new collaborative partnerships to 

conduct research related to fish and 

wildlife adaptation to climate change. 

We will enhance our existing research 

partnerships at the Federal level, 

especially with the U.S. Geological 

Survey, the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration, and the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration; with universities and 

university consortiums (e.g., Cooperative 

Ecosystem Studies Units); and with 

the private sector to design and 

implement a climate change research 

program in conjunction with LCCs 

and Climate Science Centers. We will 

develop new research partnerships as 

our needs dictate.

We have designated areas on National 

Wildlife Refuges as sites for long-term, 

integrated research and monitoring. 

These include Research Natural Areas 

(on 97 refuges) and Land Management 

and Research Demonstration Areas 

(on eight refuges). We will investigate 

expanding both these systems to 

achieve our climate change research and 

monitoring goals. The Refuge System’s 

draft Strategic Plan for Inventories 

and Monitoring on National Wildlife 

Refuges: Adapting to Environmental 

Change calls for Research Natural Areas 

to be distributed among refuges over 

two strata—areas that are predicted to 

remain the same (i.e., climate refugia) 

and those predicted to have extremely 

dynamic climatic niches with uncertain 

outcomes. Additional Land Management 

and Research Demonstration Areas could 

be established in refuges to demonstrate 

adaptive management approaches 

to climate change and/or to serve as 

research sites for climate studies. We will 

direct additional funding, as it becomes 

available, to the Land Management 

and Research Demonstration Areas for 

climate change research.

Strategic Goals & Objectives Rare Cacti: Is Hotter and 

Drier Better?

As the most readily recognized component 

of arid ecosystems, we intuitively think that 

cacti are uniquely adapted to live in the 

desert and may be able to withstand hotter 

and drier conditions brought on by climate 

change. Based on monitoring information 

we have collected for several Federally 

listed and candidate cacti species in Arizona 

and New Mexico, this may be an incorrect 

assumption. Populations of these cacti have 

been monitored for at least 20 years, with 

each species’ population showing declines 

in overall numbers and reduced, or no, 

reproduction since the 1990s.

What will happen to these cacti species if 

drought conditions continue? Seed banks 

may be reduced, and seed germination and 

seedling survival will likely be reduced. 

Even for established plants, increases 

in rabbit and rodent predation of cacti 

that occur during drought may remove 

large, reproductive individual plants from 

populations.

Due to their limited geographic distribution, 

these cacti species may not be able to 

disperse into areas where they can persist. 

The management questions before us 

are, “How do we manage for these and 

similar species under changing climatic 

regimes?” and “Are these species 

candidates for population augmentation 

in their existing locations or for assisted 

colonization—moving them or placing seeds 

in other areas that may be favorable for their 

continued existence?”

Mima Falk, plant ecologist, Phoenix 

Ecological Services Field Office, Tucson, AZ

(Above) Acuna cactus in bloom. 

Photo: usfws
28 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

Objective 6.2: Develop Standards, Guidelines, 

and Best Management Practices for Biological 

Carbon Sequestration

The Carbon Sequestration Working 

Group will identify scientific approaches, 

standards, guidelines, and best 

management practices for biological 

carbon sequestration activities to achieve 

optimal fish and wildlife habitat through 

strict requirements for use of native 

vegetation. This information will be 

shared domestically and internationally 

to encourage large-scale partnerships 

in science-driven, biological carbon 

sequestration that supports fish and 

wildlife adaptation to climate change.

Objective 6.3: Integrate Biological Carbon 

Sequestration Activities into Landscape 

Conservation Approaches

We will work to ensure that biological 

carbon sequestration activities, whether 

initiated by the Service or others, 

are implemented within an adaptive, 

landscape-conservation context. 

Applying our SHC framework, including 

biological planning and conservation 

design, on-the-ground delivery, and 

research and monitoring to evaluate 

success, LCCs will help us work with 

partners to determine where, when, how 

much, and what types of habitat should 

be conserved, protected, and enhanced in 

a given area to achieve both species and 

carbon-sequestration objectives.

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.

Objective 6.1: Develop Biological Carbon 

Sequestration Expertise

Biological carbon sequestration has the 

potential to simultaneously accomplish 

both adaptation and mitigation 

objectives. For example, by reforesting 

a corridor between two protected areas 

with an appropriate mix of native trees, 

we not only sequester carbon, we create 

viable habitat as well. When the restored 

habitat contributes to attainment 

of explicit population objectives for 

climate-vulnerable species or species 

assemblages, then we are achieving both 

mitigation and adaptation objectives.

To accomplish this dual vision within 

priority landscapes, we will need to 

develop specific expertise in biological 

carbon sequestration through a Carbon 

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.

Objective 5.2: Assess and Reduce the 

Service’s Land Management Carbon Footprint

The Service’s land-management activities 

for wildlife have an associated carbon 

footprint. To achieve carbon neutrality, 

we must assess and reduce this footprint 

to the maximum extent possible while 

still achieving the Service’s mission. 

Because our understanding of the 

carbon footprint associated with our land 

management activities is incomplete, the 

first step will be to inventory, monitor, 

and evaluate our emissions of greenhouse 

gases through these activities. We will 

then be in a position to consider how 

to reduce emissions while we achieve 

the Service’s highest land-management 

priorities, a process that will involve 

evaluating green energy alternatives, 

considering trade-offs, and making 

difficult choices.

Objective 5.3: Offset the Remaining 

Carbon Balance

After we minimize the carbon footprint 

of the Service’s facilities, vehicles, 

operations, and land-management 

activities, a residual carbon footprint may 

remain. We will offset our residual carbon 

footprint through carbon sequestration 

and other measures, such as buying 

offsets, to become carbon neutral by the 

Year 2020.

Strategic Goals & Objectives
Strategic Goals & Objectives / 29

Engagement

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.

Objective 7.1: Provide Service Employees 

with Climate Change Information, Education, 

and Training

Climate change is ushering in a new 

era of conservation for the Service that 

involves novel ways of thinking and bold 

innovations in the way we do business. 

We will view all of our endeavors 

through the lens of climate change and 

be willing to question the status quo, 

re-examine priorities and make difficult 

choices regarding where we can make 

a difference and where we cannot. We 

will communicate our climate change 

Strategic Plan to employees Servicewide. Every employee will be challenged 

to be engaged and to contribute to the 

plan’s development and implementation. 

Our highly dedicated employees and 

our field-based organizational structure 

are our core strengths in addressing the 

impacts of climate change on wildlife 

resources. Building awareness within 

our workforce about the challenges and 

threats from a changing climate and 

developing the expertise to address these 

impacts are priorities.

Section 712 of the Energy Independence 

and Security Act of 2007 mandates the 

Department of the Interior to develop 

a methodology and assess the capacity 

of our nation’s ecosystems for ecological 

carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas 

flux mitigation. Secretarial Order 3289 

implements the DOI Carbon Storage 

Project, with the U.S. Geological Survey 

as lead agency. The U.S. Geological 

Survey has initiated the LandCarbon 

Project to develop a methodology that 

meets specific Energy Independence and 

Security Act requirements. The Service 

will collaborate with the U.S. Geological 

Survey in the implementation of the 

methodology on Service lands.

Objective 6.6: Evaluate Geologic Carbon 

Sequestration

Geologic carbon sequestration is the 

isolation and/or removal of carbon 

dioxide from industrial processes and 

its long-term storage underground to 

reduce or prevent increasing levels of 

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.15 The 

Department owns or has a material 

interest in more than 500 million acres 

of land in the United States, including 

National Wildlife Refuges. Beneath some 

of these lands exists the potential to 

sequester carbon dioxide in oil and gas 

reservoirs, deep saline reservoirs, and 

un-mineable coal seams. The Department 

may undertake an inventory of geologic 

carbon sequestration potential on its 

lands and may conduct research on 

the feasibility and environmental 

risks associated with geologic 

sequestration. We will participate in 

the Department’s geologic carbon 

sequestration efforts to help ensure 

that potential impacts to fish and 

wildlife are considered and minimized.

Objective 6.4: Facilitate Biological Carbon 

Sequestration Internationally

One of our most important roles in 

carbon sequestration may well be to 

facilitate habitat conservation through 

biological carbon sequestration at the 

international level. By working with 

international partners and stakeholders 

to help reduce deforestation rates in 

key areas, such as tropical forests; and 

by providing technical assistance and 

funding for carbon sequestration through 

reforestation, we will help preserve areas 

critical to biodiversity conservation and 

support greenhouse gas mitigation. We 

will work through our Wildlife Without 

Borders and Multinational Species 

programs to provide funding and technical 

assistance for projects designed to 

increase carbon sequestration, restore 

habitat, and increase habitat connectivity 

internationally.

Objective 6.5: Facilitate Biological Carbon 

Sequestration Research

There are still gaps in our understanding 

of biological carbon sequestration and its 

benefits for wildlife habitat, especially 

in regard to wetlands and grasslands. 

Our carbon sequestration experts and 

managers will work with others, such as 

the U.S. Geological Survey, to identify and 

fill information gaps regarding biological 

carbon sequestration.

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

Objective 7.3: Forge Alliances and Create 

Forums on Climate Change to Exchange 

Information and Knowledge and to Influence 

International Policy

Working principally through our 

International Affairs and Migratory 

Birds programs, we will engage other 

countries in sharing state-of-the-art 

knowledge on climate change adaptation, 

mitigation, and education strategies. We 

will seek to learn from their experiences 

and will share our experiences with them 

to achieve a common understanding and 

common ground for moving forward 

together on climate change policy 

and action. We will also seek ways to 

address climate change more effectively 

through the United Nations Framework 

Convention on Climate Change; 

international conventions, such as 

the Convention on International 

Trade in Endangered Species of Wild 

Fauna and Flora, the Convention on 

Wetlands of International Importance 

(Ramsar Convention), and other 

international agreements.

By also engaging with our international 

partners and foreign governments in 

informing and educating their citizens 

about the causes and consequences of 

climate change, the Service will have an 

opportunity to further wildlife adaptation 

and climate change mitigation around the 

world. With our partners, we will help to 

create worldwide support for minimizing 

deforestation and for creating new 

habitat through carbon sequestration 

activities; and we will encourage local 

community participation in international 

carbon markets that reduce greenhouse 

gas emissions.

role, our External Affairs program 

and National Conservation Training 

Center will develop and implement, in 

conjunction with programs and regions, 

a comprehensive engagement strategy 

for external information, education, and 

communication about climate change. 

The plan will help to create a broad-scale 

awareness of the urgent nature of the 

effects of accelerating climate change 

on fish and wildlife and habitats; and 

will engage others in becoming part 

of the solution through such means as 

minimizing their carbon footprints.

The National Conservation Training 

Center will work with the Refuge System 

and the Fisheries program to develop 

climate change materials and provide 

informational, educational, and training 

opportunities to external audiences, 

using the National Wildlife Refuge 

System, National Fish Hatcheries, 

the Service website, and employee 

presentations as primary venues for this 

engagement with the public.

To become a better, more informed 

partner, we will actively seek knowledge 

from State, Federal, Tribal, and local 

government agencies; non-governmental 

organizations; business and industry 

already engaged in addressing climate 

change; and individual citizens. We will 

put the same energy into learning 

from others as we do teaching others 

what we know.

We will provide technical assistance 

to public and private landowners, 

conservation organizations, business and 

industry, and governments at all levels 

to help them understand impacts to 

fish, wildlife and habitats as a result 

of climate change; and to encourage them 

to undertake adaptation, mitigation, 

and engagement activities to address 

those impacts.

Our External Affairs program and 

National Conservation Training 

Center will develop and implement a 

comprehensive employee engagement 

strategy addressing internal needs for 

information, education, and training 

about climate change. The plan will 

be aimed at ensuring every Service 

employee understands basic climate 

change science, the urgency of the 

climate change challenge to our mission, 

and what actions each of us can take 

professionally and personally to engage 

in mitigation and adaptation activities.

The National Conservation Training 

Center will develop and implement 

a climate change curriculum to train 

Service employees in methods to address 

climate change in their day-to-day 

activities. The training will also prepare 

our employees to serve as a resource 

for our partners, stakeholders, and 

the public as these groups engage in 

climate change adaptation and mitigation 

activities. The National Conservation 

Training Center will incorporate climate 

change information from this curriculum 

into other course offerings 

as appropriate.

Objective 7.2: Share Climate Change 

Information, Education, and Training 

Opportunities with External Audiences

To effectively address climate change 

nationally, every conservation partner 

must be both a learner and a teacher. 

As we in the Service learn, we will 

also step up to fulfill our teaching role 

with our national and international 

partners, our stakeholders, our 

key constituencies, and the public, 

anticipating that they will do the same 

for us. To accomplish our teaching 

Strategic Goals & Objectives
Rising to the Challenge / 31

heroes upon whose shoulders we stand, 

and like them, we will rise up to confront 

the conservation challenge of our day 

with courage and resolve. We will move 

forward with enthusiasm and optimism 

borne of confidence in the soundness 

of the plans we have created, in the 

ingenuity of our workforce, and in the 

results we will achieve in collaboration 

with our partners. We will remain 

inspired by keeping the future of fish and 

wildlife at the forefront of our thinking. 

And we will look forward to that day 

when we can speak of climate change as 

yesterday’s crisis.

We must treat climate change as the national security issue that 

it is. Going forward, we must dedicate 

our energies, our resources, and our 

creativity to a long-term campaign to 

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 wellbeing of every citizen. We must mobilize 

efforts to help fish and wildlife adapt 

to changes that have already occurred 

in their habitats as a result of climate 

change, and changes that we foresee in 

the future. We must confront climate 

change as a communal problem, engaging 

all segments of society as partners and 

potential partners. We must implement 

our Strategic Plan and 5-Year Action 

Plan, reaching inward to every part of 

our organization and outward to the 

larger conservation community to build 

the will, the relationships, the capabilities 

and the resources we need to succeed.

We will carry out our responsibilities 

with humility and gratitude—humility 

in recognizing how much we have yet 

to learn about climate change and 

its impacts on wildlife; and gratitude 

that if we act now, it is not too late to 

do something about it. We honor our 

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.

Our plan is ambitious — rightfully and necessarily so. When it comes 

to climate change, we cannot afford a failure of imagination. If we are to 

accomplish our vital mission of “working with others to conserve, protect, 

and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing 

benefit of the American people,” addressing the greatest threat to that 

mission—climate change—must be our highest priority.

Rising to the Challenge

As daunting as the issue of climate 

change may seem, we accept that every 

generation has faced environmental 

challenges, and this is ours to deal with. 

We will remember those conservation 

We stand now where two roads diverge. 

But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s 

familiar poem, they are not equally fair. 

The road we have long been traveling 

is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway 

on which we progress with great speed, 

but at its end lies disaster. The other fork 

of the road / the one less traveled by / 

offers our last, our only chance 

to reach a destination that assures 

the preservation of the earth.

Rachel Carson (1907–1964), world-famous environmentalist, celebrated author, 

and one-time employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
32 / Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change 

11 Galatowitsch, S., L. Frelich, and L. PhillipsMao. 2009. Regional climate change 

adaptation strategies for biodiversity 

conservation in a midcontinental region of 

North America. Biological Conservation 

142:2012-2022.

12 Choi, Y.D. 2007. Restoration ecology 

to the future: A call for new paradigm. 

Restoration Ecology 15(2):351-353.

13 Mawdsley, J.R., R. O’Malley, and D.S. 

Ojima. 2009. A review of climatechange adaptation strategies for 

wildlife management and biodiversity 

conservation. Conservation Biology 

23(5):1080-1089.

14 Beier, P., and B. Brost. 2010. Use of 

land facets to plan for climate change: 

Conserving the arenas, not the actors. 

Conservation Biology 24(3):701-710.

15 Department of the Interior Task Force 

on Climate Change. 2008. An analysis 

of climate change impacts and options 

relevant to the Department of the 

Interior’s managed lands and waters: 

Report of the subcommittee on land and 

water management. Department of the 

Interior, Washington, DC. 150 pp.

5 Both, C., S. Bouwhuis, C.M. Lessells, and 

M.E. Visser. 2006. Climate change and 

population declines in a long-distance 

migratory bird. Nature 414:81-83.

6 Field, C.B., L.D. Mortsch, M. Brklacich, 

D.L. Forbes, P. Kovacs, J.A. Patz, 

S.W. Running and M.J. Scott. 2007. 

North America. Climate Change 2007: 

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Contribution of Working Group II to 

the Fourth Assessment Report of the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change. M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. 

Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. 

Hanson, (eds.) IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland. 

Pages 617-652.

7 Glick, P., J. Clough, and B. Nunley. 2008. 

Sea level rise and coastal habitats in the 

Chesapeake Bay region. Technical Report. 

National Wildlife Federation, Washington, 

DC. 121 pp.

8 National Ecological Assessment Team 

(NEAT). 2006. Strategic Habitat 

Conservation: Final Report of the National 

Ecological Assessment Team. July 2006. 

“45 pp.

9 Runge, M. 2008. Strategic Habitat 

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.

Literature Cited

1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change. 2007. Climate Change 2007: 

Synthesis Report. Contribution of 

Working Groups I, II and III to the 

Fourth Assessment Report of the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change [Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R.K 

and Reisinger, A. (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, 

Switzerland. 104 pp.

2 Backlund, P., A. Janetos, and D. Schimel 

(convening lead authors). 2008. The 

effects of climate change on agriculture, 

land resources, water resources, and 

biodiversity in the United States. Synthesis 

and Assessment Product 4.3. Report by 

the U.S. Climate Change Science Program 

and the Subcommittee on Global Change 

Research. U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency, Washington, D.C. 362 pp.

3 US Fish and Wildlife Service. 2008. 

Determination of threatened status for the 

polar bear (Ursus maritimus) throughout 

its range. Federal Register Vol. 73:28212-

28303. May 15, 2008.

4 McLaughlin, J.F., J.J. Hellmann, C.L. 

Boggs, and P.R. Ehrlich. 2002. Climate 

change hastens population extinctions. 

Proceedings of the National Academy of 

Sciences 99:6070-6074.

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 <www.fws.gov>.

September 2010