Smart Conservation in a Climate Change World: How to Fit Climate Change Adaptation into your Organizational Goals
October 3, 2010 • Hartford, CT
Overview
Event: Land Trust Rally
Climate change doesn’t mean that you have to panic or close your eyes and pretend it isn’t happening. This session is designed to provide an understanding of the basic approaches and tools for land trust practitioners to begin to incorporate climate change into their existing conservation planning and management efforts. A team of experts will explore key concepts and principles in adaptation, and present case studies of planning and management strategies that are underway. The session will also include a climate change clinic in which participants will start applying adaptation principles to their own conservation plans and issues.
Participants should be prepared to briefly describe their own work. Panelists will work with participants to apply the principles and tools of adaptation in order to develop ways to address climate change in participant conservation plans. Come ready to brainstorm, leave ready to act.
Agenda & Speakers
Speakers:
- Jennie Hoffman, senior scientist at EcoAdapt, will lead the seminar and provide the framework for adaptation
- Kim Hall, Great Lakes Climate Change Ecologist for The Nature Conservancy, will focus on restoration
- John O’Leary, Fisheries Biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, will talk about how the cutting edge State Wildlife Action Plan implementation plan it prepared addresses climate change and how land trusts can be involved in and benefit from these planning processes
- Erika Rowland, Climate Change Biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society will focus on land management
- Bruce Stein, Associate Director, Wildlife Conservation & Global Warming, with the National Wildlife Foundation will talk about what’s next with federal action
- Mike Whitfield, coordinator of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, will talk about how land trusts can work to adapt landscape-scale conservation to climate change
Presentations:
- Hoffman: Adapting Your Work to Climate Change
- Hall: Adapting to Climate Change: Great Lakes Restoration Examples
- O’Leary: Using Vulnerability Assessment Results to Implement the State Wildlife Action Plan
- Rowland: Management Planning in Light of Climate Change: Grassland Wildlife in the Great Plains LCC
- Stein: Climate Adaptation at the Federal Level and Beyond
- Whitfield: Heart of the Rockies Initiative & Climate Adaptation
Reading & Resources
- Climate Change Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT) Framework. Climate Change and Wildlife Conservation Working Group. 2012. (View on CAKE.)
- Gentry, B. 2009. Stormy Seas: Land Trusts Navigate the Uncertainties Surrounding Climate Change. Saving Land Summer 2009, pp. 15-17. (View on CAKE.)
- Land Trust Alliance. Land Trust Alliance Climate Change Fact Sheet. 2009.
- Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences and Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. 2010. Climate Change and Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife.
- Policy on Building Resilience to Climate Change. Maryland Department of Natural Resources. 2010. (View on CAKE.)
- Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy. Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. 2006. Chapter Synopses, State Programs.
- An Assessment of Decision-Making Processes: The Feasibility of Incorporating Climate Change Information into Land Protection Planning.U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2009. Global Change Research Program, National Center for Environmental Assessment, Washington, DC; 34 EPA/600/R-09/142a. (View on CAKE.)
- Programmatic Framework for Considering Climate Change Impacts in Coastal Habitat Restoration, Land Acquisition, and Facility Development Investments. NOAA. 2010. (View on CAKE.)
- Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers. NOAA. 2010. (View on CAKE.)
- Climate Change and Conservation: A Primer for Assessing Impacts and Advancing Ecosystemâbased Adaptation in The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy. 2010. (View on CAKE.)
- Climate Change Adaptation Across the Landscape: A Survey of Federal and State Agencies, Conservation Organizations, and Academic Institutions in the United States. Theoharides, K., G. Barnhart, and P. Glick. 2009. Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Defenders of Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, and The National Wildlife Federation. (View on CAKE.)
- Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. United States Global Change Research Program. 2009. (View on CAKE.)
- Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources. United States Global Change Research Program. 2009. (View on CAKE.)
Adaptation Case Studies Involving Land Trusts:
- North Coast Regional Land Trust: Wood Creek Tidal Marsh Enhancement Project
- Scenic Hudson Land Trust: Prioritizing Lands in Light of Sea Level Rise
- Preparing for Climate Change on State-Owned Aquatic Lands in Washington State
- Using Outreach to Catalyze Small Changes in Climate Change Adaptation on Bald Head Island, North Carolina
- Integrating Climate Change into the Massachusetts State Wildlife Action Plan Using an Expert Panel-based Vulnerability Assessment
- Waihe’e Refuge Restoration Project
- Preparing for Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region
- Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge/Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula Climate Adaptation Project
- Integrating Climate Change Adaptation Strategies into Maryland’s Coastal Land Conservation Targeting
Useful Websites: