Directors Future Challenges Messages

As we work together to address the grand challenges of conserving biodiversity and ecosystem function in an era of rapid and widespread ecological change, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) launched our Future Challenges Project with a scientific workshop, August 10-12, at the National Conservation Training Center. At this workshop, we explored four environmental drivers that will affect our work and missions in the future. We examined the issues of water resources, invasive species, climate change, and biotechnology for their potential long-term impacts in managing biological resources and the systems that support them over the next 10 to 20 years. We also looked at the management strategies and scientific knowledge, capabilities, and tools that the USGS and FWS will need to address these issues in the future. The workshop was the first step in our joint initiative aimed at ensuring we develop an excellent science base for use in resource management and decision-making.

Scientists with expertise in these four issues kicked off the discussions with plenary presentations to 40 USGS and FWS scientists and resource managers and 5 partners who participated in the workshop. Dr. Anthony C. Janetos, Vice President of The Heinz Center, set the tone for the workshop with a keynote address in which he called the four challenges “drivers of change” due to their potential to influence our ability to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem function. He encouraged us to document and understand these drivers of change and to develop strategies for both adaptation and mitigation.

The four speakers that followed Dr. Janetos emphasized the cross-cutting nature of the four drivers of change in relationship to natural resource conservation. We learned from Dr. Dennis Ojima of Colorado State University that as the earth warms the predicted 2-4°C by the end of the 21st century, we can anticipate increasing competition for water resources as a result of lengthening and deepening droughts, related expansion in species invasiveness, and increases in species extinction rates. Dr. Robert M. Hirsch of the USGS focused on the necessity to develop the science to predict the consequences of water allocation choices society will be called upon to make, new technologies for water reuse that can increase the supply of water, and integrating biological and hydrological science approaches to ecosystems. Dr. Anne Kapuscinski of the University of Minnesota suggested that modern biotechnology is a tool that will expand both our understanding of, and ability to address the growing crises of invasive species and species extinction, while sounding a cautionary note about the rapidly escalating field of genetic engineering and the need to develop and apply more effective ecological risk assessment approaches. Dr. Jamie Reaser of Ecos Systems Institute drew attention to the threats that invasive species pose to ecosystem function, as well as native species, and the need for international efforts to prevent new introductions.

In the breakout sessions on each of the four future challenges following these expert presentations, consistent themes emerged. One was the need for the USGS and FWS to coordinate their research, monitoring, and risk assessment efforts so that human and financial resources are used effectively and directed at the highest priority needs. The need for integrated monitoring approaches was emphasized repeatedly. Closely related to that was the importance of accessing and sharing research and results so that the best information available is used by all decision-makers. Another cross-cut was the need for our bureaus to participate in policy development across the government as society addresses these challenges. Participants recognized that the magnitude of these challenges will require unprecedented collaboration, across many communities. How we communicate our stake in these issues will be vitally important.

The next step in the Future Challenges Project is to share the specific ideas emerging from this workshop with USGS and FWS employees. In October, four Future Challenges summaries, one on each of the topics addressed at the workshop, will be made available to USGS and FWS employees for consideration and comment. A small planning team from the workshop will meet in September to develop follow-up steps to engage a broad cross-section of USGS and FWS employees in discussions of actions needed on these issues. It is our goal to begin an expanding dialogue between managers and scientists that will define and direct our combined effort to address these Future Challenges. As this initiative matures, we will move beyond our agency boundaries and engage our partners in the scientific, natural resource, and NGO communities.

One of the most inspiring thoughts emerging from the Future Challenges workshop was that the USGS and FWS are two bureaus with one mission – a commitment to the use of good science in resource management. It is in this spirit of partnership that we will continue this journey, recommitting ourselves to science excellence in addressing the grand challenge of conserving America’s vast heritage of biological resources.

We look forward to working together with you in this challenging effort in the days, months, and years ahead.

Last updated: June 22, 2009