Conservation in transition: leading change in the 21st century

              U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Conservation in

Transition

Leading Change in the 21st Century

LegaC y

S C ienC e

S T e W ardS hip S erviC e

p roF e SSionaL i S m

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Conservation in Transition: Leading Change in the 21st Century / 1

Foreword

Dealing with changing climate requires

willingness and ability to think about

and approach conservation in new

ways. Our “marketplace” is now global.

Our conservation target — once as

simple as protecting and managing

parts and pieces — is now as complex

as sustaining systems and functions,

species and populations at global

scales. We must understand climate

change as an overarching challenge

that requires us to reconsider every

aspect of organizational and program

operations and performance. We cannot

face this challenge by simply repeating

the conservation successes of the past.

We must rapidly develop the capacity to

envision and deliver conservation across

connected networks of habitats, based on

scientific understanding and predictions

of species’ needs. We know what needs to

be done, and we know it will be difficult.

The key ingredient is leadership with a

vision that is equal to the challenges of

the 21st century.

We must embrace

and lead change,

not just within

ourselves and our

organization, but

across the entire

conservation

community.

american fish and wildlife conservation

took root and flourished during

the 20th century, organizing around

component pieces of the ecological

landscape — land, water, coast,

ocean, forest, range, fish and wildlife.

Conservation professions and

organizations emerged from these

demarcations and have served well in

facing issues that are largely local and

confined within jurisdictional boundaries.

But as the human enterprise has

grown from local to regional and now

global scales, conservation challenges

such as poorly planned development,

habitat fragmentation, pollution and

water scarcity have also increased.

The complexity and scale of today’s

conservation problems are challenging

the existing organizational and

professional frameworks within which

the conservation community operates.

Now, climate change is accelerating the

need for change in our conservation

professions and organizations.

Coordination can no longer be our

goal; we must recognize the need for

working beyond our boundaries and

accept interdependency as an organizing

principle. We must embrace and lead

change, not just within ourselves and

our organization, but across the entire

conservation community. As we approach

a governmental transition, the U.S. Fish

and Wildlife Service is positioned to be

a catalyst for a new and promising era

of conservation.

i n S i d e

Introduction / 2

Forces of Change / 4

Vision for the Future / 6

Building Capacity / 10

Moving Forward / 12

Frank peTers

jane peLLICCIoTTo

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introduction

as an agency, the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service traces its origins

to a point nearly two decades before

the closing of the American Frontier. In

1871, with the establishment of the U.S.

Commission on Fish and Fisheries, the

idea of fish and wildlife conservation as

a right and proper federal government

endeavor found its first public expression.

That idea framed our beginning, and

from the beginning there was change.

At the dawn of the 20th century, leaders

solidified the notion of conservation

as a fundamental public service,

providing a powerful vision of public

trust that would guide development of

the nation’s private, state, tribal and

federal conservation infrastructure. Soon

thereafter, in the midst of the first global

conflict, we would enter into a treaty

with Great Britain for the conservation

of migratory birds. And later, from the

social, economic and ecological turmoil of

the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression,

other visionary commitments would

emerge: secure funding to build state

capacities and reestablish depleted

populations of wildlife; a collaborative

system to regulate the hunting of

migratory waterfowl on continental

scales; a system of national wildlife

refuges; the Endangered Species Act;

and many others. Alongside our state and

other conservation partners — notably

hunters, anglers, birders and citizen

conservationists — we have proudly

met the 20th century’s conservation

challenges. Our charge now is to move

beyond our past success and find new

and innovative ways to deal with climate

change and other emerging challenges

in the 21st century.

In the following pages, we present a

future vision that is mindful of the past.

We examine the forces and trends that

even now are shaping 21st century

conservation in ways very different

from that of the previous century. We

continue with a broad analysis of the

implications to the future Service and

the growing realization that the change

before us is, in many respects, change

without precedent. We conclude with

an assessment of the transformational

change that will be needed by the

Service — change already

underway — to go

beyond the successes of

our past to new vistas

of opportunity that

lie ahead.

Paul Kroegel (left),

the nation’s first

refuge manager,

at Pelican Island

NWR. The refuge

was designed to

stop the killing

of birds at a

specific location.

It led to the idea of

building a network

of habitat (such

as bottomland

hardwood forest,

pictured right, at

Noxubee National

Wildlife Refuge

in Mississippi) to

protect migrating

birds on a

continental scale.

Climate change

will require an

even grander

vision.

Frank peTers

4 / Conservation in Transition: Leading Change in the 21st Century

Conservation in Transition

Forces of Change

Sixty years ago, Rachel Carson wrote

those words in the fifth pamphlet of

her “Conservation in Action” series,

but they now seem almost prophetic.

Carson, a former Fish and Wildlife

Service employee, is known for her

epic Silent Spring, which awakened the

world to the dangers of indiscriminate

pesticide use. The conservation

challenges of the 21st century, however,

represent a force of change potentially

more far-reaching and consequential

than any previously encountered.

Today the Service and conservation

community at large face issues of scale,

pace and complexity unheard of in

Carson’s time. When Silent Spring was

published in 1962, the world’s human

population was slightly more than

3 billion. As of September 2008, it is

estimated to be about 7 billion people

and is expected to reach nearly

9 billion by the year 2042. As the

number of people has increased —

 

along with rapid industrialization and

development — resource management

challenges such as habitat fragmentation,

contamination, pollution, invasive

species, disease and threats to water

quality and quantity have grown as

well. In particular, accelerated energy

development — from both conventional

and renewable sources in the United

States — is interrelated with the above

challenges and the larger impacts of

climate change.

Accelerated climate change is magnifying

impacts on water and land resources,

agriculture and biological diversity

(see sidebar page 5). We know from the

experiences and observations of Service

biologists that the effects of climate

change are neither isolated nor limited to

a small number of vulnerable species and

habitats; they are ubiquitous across the

U.S. landscape and they are growing.

Climate change impacts are already

urgent in Alaska; they are increasingly

evident along our coastlines, in the arid

West, and in the shifting ecologies of

migration, pollination and invasion; and

the threat of ever greater impacts looms

large. For example, as temperatures rise,

the mountain pine beetle is expanding its

western U.S. range into higher latitudes

and elevations — areas once too cold

to support it. The beetle is killing pine

trees, making forests more susceptible

to wildfires, and creating the potential

to fundamentally and rapidly shift

ecosystem function and structure.

Success at individual project sites will not

be sufficient in an era of climate change.

Therefore, the overarching aim of the

Service will be success at the landscape

scale, achieved by leveraging our

conservation capacity with that of states

and the conservation community at large

and attaining biological outcomes larger

than those we could attain ourselves.

Coping with Climate

Though other regions likely will not be

confronted with climate change impacts

on the same scale or pace as the Arctic,

climatic changes in the Lower 48 States

will amplify current management

challenges such as habitat fragmentation,

invasive species and water scarcity. This

will require an emphasis on large areas

with interconnected and ecologically

functional habitats capable of sustaining

many species — landscapes — rather

than single species or isolated or remnant

habitats. The Service’s challenge will

be to translate climate projections into

transparent predictions of how wildlife

populations and habitats will change in

response.

As climate changes, the abundance and

distribution of wildlife and fish will also

change. Some species will adapt to an

abruptly warming world but many will

not. Species that migrate long distances

and those whose geographic ranges are

limited, for instance, may not be able to

adjust to the changes caused by rising

temperatures. Barriers to migration

(natural and human-caused), increased

competition for habitat and the lack of

suitable or available food could make

things difficult for species moving to

new locations.

Challenges posed by a changing

climate might include:

n Increased frequency of extreme

weather events;

n Changes in the timing, location,

and intensity of wildfires;

n Altered hydrology in rivers and

wetlands;

n Changes in rain and snowfall

patterns;

n Changes in access to water resources;

n Rising sea levels at the Service’s

166 coastal refuges.

Nowhere are the effects of climate

change more evident than in the Arctic

ecosystems. In the Service’s Alaska

Region, observations of Arctic changes

include diminishing sea ice, coastal

erosion, shrinking glaciers, thawing

permafrost, wetland drainage, altered

stream hydrology and earlier “green-up”

of Arctic vegetation. Increased

temperatures in the Arctic have also

contributed to the earlier onset of snow

melt and the lengthening of the melting

season, resulting in decreased total ice

cover at summer’s end. Such changes

have profound implications for many

Arctic species, such as those that led to

our 2008 decision to list the polar bear

as a threatened species.

Emerging Trends

Peter Drucker, perhaps the most widely

read and widely quoted management

theorist of the 20th century, emphasized

the idea of “the future that has already

happened.” Emerging trends and

forces already in motion are shaping

the conservation landscape of the 21st

century. If we can identify these, as

Drucker suggests, we can prepare now

for the challenges that lie ahead.

During the 20th century the unstated but

prevailing conservation theory was the

idea that the nation’s natural resources

could be secured by government-driven

protection, restoration and management.

The future, however, points toward

solutions that reflect an integrated

response by a more networked

conservation community. The 21st

century will demand:

n A shift from managing individual

resource components to sustaining

species, populations, communities and

systems;

n An emphasis on science linking work at

project sites to achievement on broader

scales, including landscapes, major

ecoregions and entire species ranges;

n Increased use of predictive models and

specific measurable biological outcomes;

n Increased emphasis on biological

accountability and inter-organizational

collaboration;

n Increased emphasis on transparency

(public knowledge of government

actions), public participation and

engagement.

Already universities are training

young scientists in these approaches.

Tomorrow’s workforce will be

trained in systems thinking; socially

conditioned to networking; and resistant

to compartmentalized hierarchical

structures. The future points to a

workforce predisposed to a conservation

business model markedly different

from today’s.

Similarly, our concept of partnerships

must change. Collaboration among

agencies and organizations has been

a hallmark of late-20th century

conservation, but more as a forum for

coordination than an engine to build

capacity. Partnerships in the 21st century

must be driven by measurable resource

outcomes rather than mutual interests.

We must all recognize — whether federal,

state, tribal, industry or NGO — that

our conservation responsibility vastly

exceeds our individual organizational

footprints across the landscape. Looking

at this from the Fish and Wildlife

Service perspective, we cannot hope

to fulfill our trust responsibilities

without help from states, tribes, private

landowners and other partners. This

requires not just greater cooperation

and collaboration, but recognition that

we are interdependent organizations.

The future is already happening. Our

challenge as an agency is to respond

decisively to these forces of change,

develop a vision for our conservation

work in the 21st century, and build the

capacity to move it forward.

Like the resource it seeks to protect, wildlife conservation

must be dynamic, changing as conditions change, seeking

always to become more effective. Rachel Carson

A polar bear near

the Beaufort Sea

Coastline of Alaska.

Climate change will amplify

existing resource management

challenges, requiring an

emphasis on large areas

with interconnected and

ecologically functional habitats

capable of sustaining many

species — landscapes — rather

than single species or isolated

or remnant habitats.

Susanne Miler / usfws

Conservation in Transition: Leading Change in the 21st Century / 5

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Conservation in Transition

Vision for the Future

We must become

the change

we want to see.

Mahatma Gandhi

Our Priorities

National Wildlife Refuge System:

Conserving our Lands and Resources

Landscape Conservation:

Working with Others

Migratory Birds: Conservation and

Management

Threatened and Endangered Species:

Showing Recovery Success and

Preventing Extinction.

Aquatic Species: National Fish Habitat

Action Plan and Trust Species

Connecting People with Nature:

Ensuring the Future of Conservation

Our vision, principles and priorities

(see priority summaries page 8) drive

our conservation work, what we aspire

to accomplish with states and other

partners, and how we accomplish it.

They are a compass for navigating

change now and in the years ahead

and focusing our efforts on what really

matters. Ultimately, our performance

is measured in the beat of wings on an

autumn morning, the promise of a rising

native trout, and in the great opportunity

represented in abundant, diverse and

healthy populations of fish, wildlife and

plants. These things have never been

more important, and perhaps, never

more fragile and threatened.

Beyond Our Boundaries

In some respects, that which is changing

most significantly about conservation

is its boundaries. Conservation is

expanding beyond individual project

and site-specific borders to larger

landscapes. It is pushing against the

boundaries of other disciplines. It is

shoving aside the idea that protection,

restoration and management are ends

unto themselves and carrying with

it the idea that each is a means to a

larger outcome — landscapes capable of

sustaining abundant, diverse and healthy

populations of fish, wildlife and plants.

Sustaining populations at landscape

scales requires understanding of the

diverse and complex biological systems

and processes upon which they depend.

As we face a changing climate system,

it requires capacity to understand and

predict how those systems and processes

will change and how those changes will

affect the abundance, distribution and

health of species and populations. These

complexities, in turn, will define how we

work as an agency and with partners.

Fortunately, there has emerged from

the field level of the Service a strategic

approach for landscape conservation

that is suited to this challenge. Termed

“Strategic Habitat Conservation”

or SHC, it is an adaptive resource

management framework composed of

five key elements: biological planning,

conservation design, conservation

delivery, decision-based monitoring

and assumption-driven research. While

methods may vary, SHC begins and ends

with measurable biological objectives

(e.g., sustainable populations or specific

habitat outcomes, such as water quality

measurements, that would support a

sustainable population) for a species or

group of species. These objectives are

met by applying models and conservation

biology principles to ecological conditions

on the landscape.

The Service’s response to the

changing conservation landscape

is grounded in a clear realization that

21st century challenges cannot be met

by repeating and amplifying the 20th

century successes. We are proud of our

achievements and draw inspiration from

them, but that must not keep us from

embracing change that will enable

future success.

We cannot determine what we want to

be, however, without first understanding

who we are and why we exist as

an agency. Our vision statement,

conservation principles and priorities

define our identity and are guideposts

for our future vision:

Our Vision

We will continue to be 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.

Our Conservation Principles

Science. Our work is grounded in

thorough, objective science.

Stewardship. Our ethic is to conserve

natural resources for future generations.

Service. It is our privilege to serve the

American people.

Professionalism. We hold ourselves

to the highest ethical standards,

strive for excellence and respect others.

Partnerships. We emphasize creative,

innovative partnerships.

People. Our employees are our most

valued asset.

Legacy. We ensure the future of

natural resource conservation by

connecting people with nature.

SHC is a response to changes affecting

not only the Service but the conservation

community at large. It allows the

Service to deal with issues of scale and

accountability and effectively address

priorities and challenges such as climate

change. In line with this thinking, the

Service is redefining its approach to

partnerships by promoting relationships

that allow a region’s private, state and

federal conservation infrastructure

to operate as a system rather than as

independent entities. As the federal

agency most directly responsible for

fish and wildlife conservation, we will be

a catalyst for the efforts of the larger

conservation community.

The trends transforming partnerships

and conservation in general have

revealed a major shift in the manner

in which the Service and the wildlife

community at large engages the public,

and the implication is this: landscape

conservation is both a science endeavor

and a social endeavor. Increased

demands for transparency and public

participation will require at least

three things: First, a science-based

narrative describing the current and

projected ability of a landscape to

support ecologically viable populations

of fish, wildlife and their habitats;

second, a social narrative defining public

expectations regarding fish and wildlife

and the area of habitat needed; and

third, a strategy for purposeful action.

Conservation professionals will be

responsible for providing the public with

transparent, science-based assessments

and predictions of the consequences

of action and inaction. From this, the

public can participate in landscape-specific

planning and help put those

plans into action on the ground.

Efforts to see beyond our own boundaries

must occur not only within the Service

and with our partners but also across

federal government. Under the current

administrative structure, agencies are

not well coordinated in achieving common

resource goals. In the current and future

era of climate change, our ability to

conserve the nation’s fish and wildlife

will be diminished if agencies continue to

develop and pursue resource objectives

in relative isolation. We propose that the

Service and state wildlife agencies (with

science and technical support of the U.S.

Geological Survey) share responsibility

for developing spatially explicit landscape

designs for wildlife adaptation.

Habitat management agencies

(e.g., Forest Service, Bureau of Land

Management, Natural Resources

Conservation Service, Farm Service

Administration, Department of Defense,

Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of

Indian Affairs) will be responsible within

the context of their specific missions for

treating these designs as an important

guide for management decisions and

commitment of resources. This calls for

a new operational construct for agency

collaboration through the collective

integration of common goals for wildlife

conservation, and the directed efforts

of the respective agencies to achieve

these goals. >> continued on page 10

The Service is redefining its approach to

partnerships by promoting relationships

that allow a region’s private, state and

federal conservation infrastructure

to operate as a system rather than as

independent entities.

Brian Jonkers / USFWS

Strategic Habitat Conservation is a response to changes affecting

not only the Service but the conservation community at large.

Priority: National Wildlife

Refuge System

Conserving Our Lands and Resources

Created in 1903, the National Wildlife

Refuge System is the world’s most extensive

network of public lands devoted to the

conservation of wildlife habitat and wildlife

species. Spanning more than 96 million

acres on 548 national wildlife refuges and

37 wetland management districts, the

Refuge System is home to at least 700

species of birds, 220 mammals and nearly

280 threatened or endangered species.

Refuges are key starting points for the

Service’s landscape conservation efforts and

living case studies for resource management

challenges involving habitat fragmentation,

urbanization, invasive species, disease,

parasites and water management — all of

which are magnified by climate change.

Protection of key habitats within the Refuge

System remains one of the Service’s

highest priorities and one of the most

important means of implementing landscape

conservation. Using the Strategic Habitat

Conservation framework, the Refuge System

is working on a new policy for strategic

growth to address high priority conservation

needs, like the impacts of climate change on

fish and wildlife populations and habitats.

Because sea level rise is a projected

impact of climate change, the Service is

currently examining related affects on our

166 coastal national wildlife refuges. Using

predictive models, refuge managers will

be able to understand what will happen

as the ocean level rises, how fresh water

marshes will give way to salt water, and then

slip below the ocean’s surface. Knowing

this information in advance will help

refuge managers make long-term planning

decisions and implement strategic actions to

help fish and wildlife species adapt.

Refuges are living case studies for

resource management challenges.

Partnerships are critical to the

landscape conservation process.

Priority: Landscape Conservation

Working With Others

The concept of landscape conservation

is not new. For decades, the Service’s

National Wildlife Refuge System has

been built around intuitive concepts of

the relationship of birds to their habitats.

While much of the nation was in the midst

of a drought in the 1930s, the Service and

other conservation partners had the vision

to acquire and conserve wetlands in the

Prairie Pothole Region, a delicate ecosystem

rich in plant and aquatic life that supports

globally significant populations of breeding

waterfowl. More recently, increased

population and development, as well as

technological advancements that allow

scientists and managers to analyze change

at landscape scales are pushing landscape

conservation to the forefront of the fish and

wildlife profession.

What is new are the Service’s efforts

to establish a commonly understood

and practiced approach to landscape

conservation — one that is adaptive,

science-driven and focused on explicit

and measurable biological outcomes. In

the Lower Mississippi Valley, for example,

Service biologists — working with the U.S.

Geological Survey, state wildlife agencies

and other partners — discovered that by

conserving the right habitat in the right

places they could increase the benefit

to wildlife populations across the valley.

They found that when small tracts where

conservation had been achieved were

mapped they hit only 3 percent of the core

habitat needed by waterfowl and forest

breeding birds. When the partners focused

on core habitat and connected it using the

same level of conservation resources, they

captured 54 percent of the core habitat

needed for those species. That’s what

landscape conservation is all about.

Priority: Migratory Birds

Conservation and Management

Migrating birds are more adaptive than

other suites of species because they can

move long distance in search of food

and mates. But, because of the distance

traveled, they are more difficult to study

and understand. This means researchers

and conservationists need to cover more

ground — sometimes an entire hemisphere.

Some migrating species are highly

specialized to particular food sources like

a hummingbird that times its northerly

migration to meet flowering plants along

the way. Other birds, like the albatross

that breed on remote islands, require

ground nesting areas protected from the

sea and predators.

It’s not hard to imagine that a warming

climate may cause plants to flower earlier

causing the hummingbird to miss its

connection with the sugar-filled nectar.

Sea-level rise could over come the low-lying

islands in the South Pacific that serve as

breeding colonies for albatross.

As the Service works with its migratory bird

partners at home and abroad, it will continue

to use the Strategic Habitat Conservation

framework to identify and conserve those

breeding areas in the north and wintering

areas to the south that migrating birds

require during their epic annual journeys.

As the Service seeks to understand the

causes of bird population declines and the

added complication of climate change, it will

follow the integrated process of monitoring

populations, understanding the dynamics of

why bird numbers change, and strategically

designing and implementing conservation

programs to address these changes.

Priority: Threatened and

Endangered Species

Achieving Recovery and Preventing

Extinction

Under the Endangered Species Act,

identifying species population and habitat

conservation goals and mapping a plan to

deliver those goals has been the heart of

candidate conservation and listed species

recovery planning. Conservation

of threatened and endangered species

will pose a particular challenge under

climate change.

Species unable to adapt to the new, rapidly

changing conditions will be less successful.

Because endangered and threatened

species are already surviving at the limits of

their ecological tolerance, the added stress

of changing climate creates the potential for

mass species extinctions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change estimates (with medium confidence)

that approximately 20 – 30 percent of

species assessed so far are likely to be

at increased risk of extinction if global

average global temperatures rise more

than 1.5 – 2.5°C (relative to 1980 –1999).

If the increase exceeds about 3.5°C,

model projections suggest significant

extinctions (40 – 70 percent of species

assessed) around the globe.

As climate change expands the scale

and complexity of the challenges facing

candidate and listed species, landscape

conservation offers the conservation

community a way to identify, prioritize and

improve recovery efforts while remaining

responsive to changing threats and new

scientific information.

Some species, such as the American

Pika, are already surviving at the limits

of their ecological tolerance.

Priority: Connecting People

with Nature

Ensuring the Future of Conservation

Americans’ declining interaction with the

outdoors — particularly children growing up

in a digital age who prefer virtual reality to

natural reality — is a substantial challenge

to our conservation mission. In response to

this trend, the Service has joined a national

movement to expand opportunities for

people to get outside and become involved

with the natural world. Our challenge is not

simply reconnecting people with nature;

it is growing a national constituency for

conservation. Adapting the wide-ranging

elements of landscape planning will have

limited effect without strong public

support and participation and an American

public committed to the sustained future

of the natural world — particularly in a

changing climate.

From providing programs that educate

and inspire children to engaging a new

generation of citizen scientists who will help

us collect and interpret data to understand

species’ response to climate change, our

land base and our employees are helping

people of every age to get outdoors.

By connecting people with nature today

we are promoting healthy lifestyles

and improving the chances that future

generations will have an affinity for nature

and a concern for its conservation. Learn

more at < www.fws.gov/letsgooutside >.

Connecting people with nature also

helps connect them to the Service’s

conservation mission.

Water management is crucial for

sustainable habitats that support plants

and animals.

Priority: Aquatic Species

National Fish Habitat Action Plan

and Trust Species

Aquatic resources are declining at alarming

rates due to habitat loss, contaminants,

invasive species, overexploitation and

most recently, diseases — all of which are

exacerbated by climate change. Of about

800 native freshwater fish species in the

United States, 37 percent are in need of

conservation action. As fish habitats decline,

so do the numerous values they provide

for natural resources, human health and a

sound economy.

There is little doubt that water quality

and quantity may be the most important

conservation issues of the 21st century.

As our population and water use increase,

so do the competing needs of our cities,

agricultural areas and wildlife. Because

water connects all forms of life, conserving it

requires a landscape-level approach based

on action, cooperation and sound science.

In a changing climate, effective water

management will be of even greater

importance in sustaining habitats that

support plants and animals. The National

Fish Habitat Action Plan uses federal,

state and privately-raised funds to build

regional partnerships that target financial

and technical resources where they

can do the most good. The plan uses an

integrated landscape approach, linking

upland, aquatic and marine systems and

determining the condition of the nation’s

waters by classifying them based on

published landscape classification

systems and support for landscape-level

fisheries projects.

Mattamuskeet NWR, North Carolina Bald Eagle American Pika Brook Trout

Lyn Adams, Sr.

Alison Whitlock / usfws

Thomas G. Barnes

N.J. Stuart

Eric Engbretson

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Conservation in Transition

Building Capacity

Vision without action is a dream.

Action without vision is simply

passing the time. Action with vision is

making a positive difference. Joel Barker

The Fish and Wildlife Service has a

reputation for getting things done,

which springs from our collective

commitment to service and the individual

dedication of thousands of conservation

professionals. Nearly a year ago, our

agency embarked to develop a strategic

plan to guide its climate change work and

chart a course of action. The strategy

focuses on adaptation (the management

actions we take to reduce the impacts of

climate change on fish, wildlife, plants

and their habitats), mitigation (human

intervention to reduce the sources or

enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases)

and education. In the year ahead we

will move quickly to identify knowledge

gaps and expand our work with partners

to effectively anticipate and address

climate change. These steps grow

from and build upon our decisions to

implement the SHC framework for

landscape conservation, and support

our transition strategy and our climate

change strategic and action plans now

being developed. No amount of vision and

planning, however, can succeed without

the capacity to equip our employees with

necessary skills, technologies, funding

and leadership support to achieve our

conservation mission.

Mirroring elements of the SHC

framework, we have identified key

investments to support this vision.

We will build additional core capacity

in biological planning and conservation

design to identify landscapes, habitats

and species that are most vulnerable to

climate change, define clear conservation

objectives, and focus our management

actions most effectively. We will work

with partners to target our conservation

delivery to accomplish these objectives,

focusing on building connectivity to

support population-level adaptations to

changing climate. We will establish and

implement new monitoring programs

and refine existing ones in order to

implement adaptive management and

test and improve our conservation

hypotheses.

Biological Planning and

Conservation Design

Through the actions described above,

we will identify clear objectives and

acquire valuable information and design

strategies necessary to meet them. This

will include determining priority species,

formulating population objectives for

those species, assessing species’ status

and trends and associated limiting

factors, and developing models to

help explain and predict the changing

relationships between species and

their habitats.

Implementing this vision requires

expertise from many disciplines:

conservation biologists to prescribe a

genetically viable population objective;

ecologists to define the population-habitat

relationships and limiting

factors; modelers to help inter-relate

all these variables; GIS specialists to

identify potential sites for protection or

management; land-use planners to input

zoning and land ownership data; field

biologists to ground-truth assumptions

and outcomes; and climate change

experts to predict large-scale ecological

changes that will drive habitat conditions

and population response.

This vision requires understanding

the relationship between project-scale

actions and larger landscape-scale

objectives; shifting focus from

outputs such as stream miles restored,

or migration barriers removed, to

explicit outcomes such as sustainable

populations; and emphasizing the

predicted impacts of climate change. To

achieve the latter, we will need capacity

to model and predict fish and wildlife

population responses to direct changes

in temperature and precipitation, and to

indirect changes resulting from human

activities in response to a changing

climate. We will need improved and

increased research and monitoring to test

assumptions about ecosystem changes

that have no precedent.

To build these capacities and drive

these changes, we envision an initial

investment to establish a network of

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives.

These cooperatives will house shared

expertise and capacity among Service

programs and between partners from

Armed with the capacities outlined in

this document, the Service will support

development of renewable energy sources

while avoiding population-level

effects on fish and wildlife resources.

diego vaires

other federal agencies, states, tribes,

universities, businesses and private

citizens. The Service will act not as owner

or operator of these cooperatives, but

as a catalyst and participant. We will

offer opportunity for co-location with

existing Service facilities and equal

eagerness to co-locate Service employees

and assets at partner facilities. In some

cases, employees and assets of many

partners will be networked between

remote locations using technology.

Our vision is not one of buildings and

bricks-and-mortar; but rather, it is one

of building capacity to define and pursue

conservation at broader scales. Because

our collective need for these capacities

and technologies far outweighs our

individual abilities to invest in them,

a collaborative approach is essential

to success.

Conservation Delivery

Climate change and other emerging

natural resources threats demand

immediate response. As we stimulate

and build new capacities through

mechanisms like Landscape

Conservation Cooperatives, there are

many actions that can be taken now.

We propose bolstering existing

delivery capacities to leverage habitat

protection, restoration, enhancement

and management activities to begin

addressing the most pressing and

obvious effects of changing climate and

to identify and begin experimenting with

adaptation options. In addition, we will

take steps to lead by example in reducing

our carbon footprint, and to provide

education on the causes and effects of

a changing climate to fish and wildlife

resources. Specific measures include:

n Developing objectives to assess,

measure and deliver landscape

connectivity through land acquisition,

easements, fish passage and cooperative

habitat restoration with private

landowners;

n Acquiring priority refuge and hatchery

water rights needed to meet objectives

for climate-vulnerable species. Water

management will be a key factor in

helping waterbirds and aquatic species

respond to changes in precipitation.

Availability of sufficient water to

operate the Service’s fish hatcheries

and wildlife refuges is fundamental to

mission success, and we will identify

and build strategies for particularly

vulnerable facilities;

n Implementing conservation plans

for priority species. The Service works

extensively with partners to write and

implement conservation plans that

prescribe specific action items, timelines

and responsible parties;

n Intensifying assessment of population

status and trends, reducing disturbance,

mitigating development-related impacts

and adaptively managing for optimal

sustainable populations of ice-dependent

species as Arctic sea ice diminishes;

n Reducing the Service’s carbon

footprint by restructuring our vehicle

fleet, emphasizing energy conservation

and managing employee travel;

n Extending our engagement in

international climate negotiations

and treaties, and in international

conservation supporting species

adaptations; and

n Implementing a comprehensive

communications plan to support the

Service’s Strategic Approach to Climate

Change at all levels of the Service.

Conservation Research

and Monitoring

To maximize efficiency, new Service

research and monitoring efforts will be

integrated with partners such as the U.S.

Geological Survey, state wildlife agencies

and key conservation organizations,

which will:

n Monitor how changes in temperatures

and precipitation alter existing

ecosystems and species-habitat

relationships. This includes expanding

our partnership in the National

Phenology Network and our efforts to

connect people with nature by engaging

a new generation of citizen scientists

who will help us collect and interpret

data to understand species’ response to a

changing climate;

n Conduct applied research to test

assumptions in peer-reviewed fish and

wildlife models. Historical climate,

population and habitat conditions are

not necessarily indicative of future

conditions. Assumptions will have to be

refined in order for models to predict

outcomes accurately, and management

actions will have to be adapted to the

revised scenarios in order to yield

predicted results; and

n Evaluate the response of populations to

management actions. Resource managers

will have to quickly assess the population

response to their actions and adjust

management techniques and strategies to

achieve desired outcomes. For example,

as we take specific actions to manage

climate-vulnerable species such as

polar bear, we will need to quickly assess

their effect and adapt management

strategies as conditions change.

Climate change and other emerging natural resources threats

demand immediate response.

12 / Conservation in Transition: Leading Change in the 21st Century

Conservation in Transition

Moving Forward

We do not inherit the Earth

from our ancestors;

we borrow it from our children.

Origin Uncertain

Viewed collectively, the conservation

challenges of the 21st century seem

staggering. But our history is one of

overcoming adversity through the power

of innovation, diligence and a strong

sense of purpose.

Dr. Ira Gabrielson, the first Director

of the Fish and Wildlife Service,

exemplified these traits. In the midst

of the Depression and Dust Bowl,

Gabrielson oversaw a nearly fourfold

expansion of the Refuge System —

 

from 63 refuges when he took over as

Director to 210 by the time he retired.

In 1939, he helped create the Patuxent

Research Refuge — the only wildlife

refuge dedicated to research; and in

1943, Gabrielson wrote Wildlife Refuges,

the definitive book on the Refuge

System. In the book, he wrote, “The

conservation battle cannot be a short,

sharp engagement, but must be grim,

tenacious warfare — the sort that makes

single gains and then consolidates

these gains until renewed strength and

a good opportunity make another

advance possible.”

Today, the Service continues to make

“single gains” but often falls short in

consolidating them. We now see that

broad-scale challenges like climate

change threaten to diminish these

advances if we are not mindful in building

the type of capacities called for in

this document. The kind of change we

envision is never easy, and it will not

take place quickly or without sacrifice.

But we must realize we are not only

working for those who place their trust

in us today; we are working for our

children and future generations who

someday will inherit the job of protecting

our natural resources.

Indeed, conservation is in transition.

But change presents an opportunity for

leadership to build on the great traditions

of our past and help shape our future

legacy. This is why the women and men

of the Fish and Wildlife Service have

chosen a career of public service — to

deal with issues of consequence and make

a difference for our nation. Together

with our partners, and with the support

of visionary leaders, we can face the

challenges of our time and change the

future for the better.

Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge National Elk Refuge

J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge

canvasback ducks ilustration: T ferns: jane peciloto; pecilans: George Gentry; purple asters: Thomas G. Barnes im knepp; cacit: usfws; elk: Glen smart

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.