Upload
hannah-harris
View
218
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Step 3Reviewing/Revising Goals
Nicholas Fisichelli,Cat Hawkins Hoffman
NPS Climate Change Response Program
Session Objectives
• Identify appropriate level of goals/objectives for consideration
• Interpret vulnerability assessment results and how they might affect achievability of goals
• Describe climate-informed goals and objectives that reflect revisions as needed
• Describe how climate-informed goals address the dual pathways of persistence and change
Where we are…
Step 3Review/Revise Conservation Goals
Inputs• Existing targets,
goals, management objectives
• Understanding of system/target vulnerabilities
Outputs• Agreed-upon
set of climate-informed conservation targets, goals, management objectives
Review/ Revise
Conservation Goals
Start where you areHow to reconsider your current conservation goals
Build on SMART principles, but reconsider….
What (conservation target)
Why (intended outcomes or desired condition)
Where (relevant geographic scope)
When (relevant timeframe)
Why reconsider our conservation goals?
“I know it when I see it…”
maintain natural abundance, diversity, and genetic and ecological integrity of (native) plant and animal species… natural?
Climate change exposes lack of specificity in our goals
conserve biodiversity… species? genetic?
provide favorable feeding, nesting, and roosting habitat for trust species on the refuge… favorable?
Why reconsider our conservation goals?Climate change challenges existing strategies
Aiming “backwards” towards the historic range of variability as a management target will be increasingly futile
Out of Reach…
Why reconsider our conservation goals?Climate change challenges existing strategies
Aiming “backwards” towards the historic range of variability as a management target will be increasingly futile
“Our dominant conservation strategy, the designation of reserves, is mismatched to a world that is increasingly dynamic.” (Comacho, et al, 2010)
wildlifetrust
s.org
….Out of styleOut of Reach…
Why reconsider our conservation goals?
Evolving needs and demands
Climate change may alter our values and priorities
in times of drought…
celcius.com
dfg.ca.gov
maintaining adequate water supplies for agricultural areas
or waterfowl conservation
Why reconsider our conservation goals?
Evolving needs and demands
under sea level rise…
Climate change may alter our values and priorities
bneinc.com
learnnc.org
coastal homes, or salt marsh
Maintain healthy rangeland ecosystems with livestock grazing to provide a desirable mix of age class and species composition.
Discuss examples of existing goals and objectives and whether/how they may or may not be forward-
looking and climate-informed.
….what, why, where, when
Class Discussion:Existing Goals and Objectives
Goal for Bonneville cutthroat trout
Ensure the long-term viability and persistence of Bonneville cutthroat trout within its
historical range in Idaho at levels capable of providing angling opportunities.
Class Discussion ….what, why, where, whenGoal for Bonneville cutthroat trout
What (conservation target)
Where (relevant geographic scope)When (relevant timeframe)
Why (intended outcomes or desired conditions)
What are “climate-informed” goals?
Climate-informed goals…
Specifically consider climate change
Articulate acceptable future conditions
Are forward-looking
Acknowledge potential trade-offs
Consider broader landscape context
Flexible in short-term, for long term effectiveness…avoid maladaptation
Same goal, different reason = “climate-informed”“Enhance Resilience”…what’s under the label?
resi
lien
ce
roystonlabels.co.uk
Climate-informed goals may consider…
Shift from patterns of composition and structure
Anna’s Hummingbird range…moving north
Climate-informed goals may…
Shift from patterns of composition and structure…to processes
maintain ecological processes, e.g. trophic interactions, intra- and inter-specific competition
explicit goals to maximize evolutionary opportunities
“geophysical stage” vs species
geologic classes, latitude, elevation range, amount of calcareous bedrock
(Anderson & Ferree, 2010)
Climate-informed goals may…
Scale up
to maintain diversity across larger landscapes
Climate-informed goals…
Explicitly acknowledge change
billfrymire.com
“The goal of managing the national parks and monuments should be to preserve, or where necessary to recreate, the ecologic scene as viewed by the first European visitors. … A national park should represent a vignette of primitive America.”
“…steward…resources for continuous change that is not yet fully understood” “Revisiting Leopold”
Persistence and Change
from preservation/restoration…to open anticipation…to active facilitation of ecological change
New paradigm:
e.g. forests to shrubland
fs.fed.us
Persistence and Change
Definition of temporal and spatial scale important
Maintain conditions in localized refugia (persistence) while conditions in surrounding habitats evolve (change)
Maintain full diversity of native species at landscape scale (persistence); accept that species within a jurisdiction will be different (change)
A spectrum of change…
Persistence Change
May be useful to alternate between the concepts of persistence and change in framing goals and shaping expectations
Challenges
Legal Constraints
Authority Can address climate change from every level
NWF Beth Pratt
Show stoppers are rarenwifc.org
Psychological barriers and trust
Some may include:
• Costs &/or momentum
• Perceived risks
• Positive but inadequate changes
Challenges
Limits of our knowledge• Not a new situation
• Show your work
Start where you are
“I couldn’t wait for success, so I started without it.” Jonathan Winters