Collaborative Efforts on Climate Change

The Fish and Wildlife Service is working collaboratively with a host of climate researchers to develop an understanding of the effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest and what it will take to manage fish and wildlife resources. Listed here are links to up-to-date information, documents, and resources. Climate change is a fast-growing topic of increasing interest and we will update this page regularly.

The National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy

In partnership with State and Tribal agencies, the Obama Administration today released the Nation's first strategy to help public and private decision makers address the impacts that climate change is having on natural resources and the people and economies that depend on them.

News Release
Strategy Website
Watch Our Video
Download the Full Strategy

USFWS Science Excellence

The goal of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Science Excellence is to strengthen our tradition of scientific excellence in the conservation of fish, wildlife, plants and their habitat. This new web site will maintain information on implementation of Science Excellence and matters related to science policy, science in action, and scientific journals.

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

To emphasize strategic conservation on a landscape level, the Fish and Wildlife Service has developed a national geographic framework composed of 22 Geographic Areas for the Service and partners to plan and design conservation strategies at landscape scales. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives will be formal science-management partnerships that will provide science support for developing and implementing conservation strategies at landscape scales. The emphasis will be on biological planning, conservation design, research, and designing inventory and monitoring programs. Products developed by the Cooperatives will help inform field-based planning, decision-making for on-the-ground conservation efforts.

Learn more about Landscape Conservation Cooperatives in the Pacific Region.

Our Office's Personal Commmitment

To address the effects of climate change throughout the state of Oregon, we at the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office are incorporating climate science into all of the work we do.

For 15 years, we have worked toward reducing our impact on the environment. From the implementation of an extensive waste reduction and recycling program in 1993, to the current activities sponsored by our Climate Change Committee, we have established a commitment to minimizing the impacts of our own actions. We take pride in the fact that our office has received two notable awards for waste reduction, recycling, and a green acquisition program: 1) the Department of Interior Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance’s Environmental Achievement Award in 2000, and 2) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Facility/Office Environmental Leader Award in 2007. By changing various operations in our office, and encouraging our staff to make helpful changes at home, we are striving, at a personal level, to reduce our "footprint".

Research

U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center
USGS has secured funding through Congress research that will support the ability of federal and state agencies to manage wildlife in the face of a changing climate. Five proposals were selected to address high priority climate change effects on fish and wildlife.

Science Daily
Source for the latest research news

Reports

USFWS Releases Final Climate Strategy
September 27, 2010, as part of the Department of the Interior’s commitment to building a coordinated strategy to respond to the impacts of climate change on the nation’s natural resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its strategic plan that will guide the agency’s efforts to respond to the unprecedented threat posed by global warming.

FWS Climate Change Strategy - Conservation in Action - FWS Climate Change Web Site

The Oregon Global Warming Commission
Adoption of an "Interim Road Map to 2020" Report (October 28, 20/10)

National Research Council
On May 19, 2010, the National Research Council issued three reports as part of a congressionally requested group of studies called America's Climate Choices.
Advancing the Science of Climate Change
Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change
Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change

The State of the Birds: 2011 Report on Climate Change
Acollaboration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and experts from the nation's leading conservation organizations, shows that climate changes will have an increasingly disruptive effect on bird species in all habitats, with oceanic and Hawaiian birds in greatest peril.

Global Climate Change: Impacts in the United States
Integrating federal research and solutions for climate and global change
Climate change is already having visible impacts in the United States. The choices we make now will determine the severity of its impacts in the future according to a new federal study assessing the current and anticipated domestic impacts of climate change.

Preliminary review of adaptation options for climate-sensitive ecosystems and resources
2008 U.S. Climate Change Science Report

Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
A Guide for Individuals and Communities

Climate Change Impacts on Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife
2007 Independent Science Advisory Board Report

Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources
2007 GAO Report

Information Resources

Beyond Seasons End - Fish and Wildlife in the Era of Climate Change
A place for fish and wildlife professionals to share information and discuss ideas about confronting the threat of global climate change. The site is sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing pragmatic and politically viable solutions to tough policy challenges.

Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest
USFWS Pacific Region Website

Resources and Forums Relating to Climate Change
What We're Doing About It
USFWS National Website

North American Environmental Atlas
Commission for Environmental Cooperation

The Birdwatcher's Guide to Global Warming
American Bird Conservancy

What You Can do about Climate Change
Environmental Protection Agency

Intergovernmental Panel

United Nations Environment Programme
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Workshops and Conferences

UPCOMING

2011 Wild Links: Coordinating across political borders to help species and habitats adapt to a changing climate
October 24-25, 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada>
Wild Links is an annual wildlife briefing, which gathers experts and interested citizens to share ideas and better coordinate ongoing efforts to keep our region's wildlife and wildlife habitat wild and connected.

Climate Change Learning Center
National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Workshops and Webinars

PREVIOUS

2010 Wild Links: Building partnerships, connecting habitats, adapting ecosystems and species to change
October 26-27, 2010 in Seattle, Washington>
Event Agenda>

Great Basin/Mojave Desert Climate Change Workshop
April 20-22, 2010, in Las Vegas, Nevada
A focus on how climate change is affecting natural resources in deserts of the western U.S., as well as the land, water, and species management and research needs that are essential to address in the coming decade.
Workshop Agenda

Climate Change Impacts on Olympic Peninsula Salmon
November 10, 2009, in Olympia, Washington
View the new video lecture series on climate change and fish provided from this one-day workshop. The workshop was conducted as a part of the WestWide Climate Initiative's Olympic Climate Change Case Study and was co-sponsored by the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, Olympic National Forest, Olympic National Park, and the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station.

Hawai‘i in a Changing Climate: Ecological, Cultural, Economic and Policy Challenges and Solutions
July 28-30, 2009, in Honolulu, Hawaii
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, a noted climate change expert and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Plenary Speakers: Dr. Pualani Kanakaole Kanahele, an internationally renowned cultural practitioner, scholar, teacher, and Hawaiian community leader; and Mr. Jon Jarvis, Director of the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service

Coastal Ecosystems of California, Oregon, and Washington
January 29-30, 2009 in San Francisco, California

Climate Change Impacts: Natural Resource Management in the Columbia River Basin
June 2008 in Boise, Idaho

Climate Change in the Northwest: Tribal Perspectives
May 2008 in Seattle, Washington

Presentations and Resources

USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station>

Pacific NW Global Change Research>

Video

USFWS Climate Change Video
See how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with partners to reduce the impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats.

Education

CLIMATE KIDS: NASA's Eyes on the Earth
Educational website produced by the Earth Science Communications Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology

Climate Change, Wildife and Wildlands Video A full 12 minute, high definition, engaging and highly informative video on climate change science and impacts on wildlife and their habitat in U.S., to be used in classrooms as an introduction to the topic or in Visitor Centers and in interpreter talks in informal educational settings.

Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands Toolkit This new version of the toolkit is designed for classroom teachers and informal educators in parks, refuges, forest lands, nature centers, zoos, aquariums, science centers, etc., and is aimed at the middle school grade level. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in partnership with six other federal agencies (National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USDA/Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management), developed the kit to aid educators in teaching how climate change is affecting our nation’s wildlife and public lands, and how everyone can become “climate stewards.”

Take Action!

National Geographic
What Is Global Warming?
Take a Global Warming Quiz

Environmental Protection Agency
What You Can do about Climate Change

Washington Department of Ecology
Shirnk Your Carbon Footprint

Other

Visionary Plan to Protect Vast Canadian Boreal Forest
(July 2008)