Climate change planning is a critical need for America’s public lands as they provide clean drinking water, habitat for fish and wildlife, and recreation.
In March 2009, Dr. Dominick DellaSala, our Chief Scientist, testified before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands regarding national priorities for climate change policy on public lands.
In his testimony he called on Congress to:
- Support a national goal to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to the atmospheric 350 parts per million safe limit;
- Declare that the primary goal for managing our public lands should be the protection of critical ecosystem services (clean water, fish and wildlife habitat, etc.) and long-term storage of carbon;
- Withdraw plans to accelerate oil and gas development on public lands as increasing development of fossil fuels will only exacerbate global warming.
Dominick’s timing proved excellent as several agencies, including the BLM and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, have since received congressional funding to develop climate change plans for the nation’s public lands.
In preparation for these various planning efforts, Dr. Marni Koopman, our Climate Change Scientist, analyzed management plans on 14 units of the National Landscape Conservation System to determine whether those lands were being managed for conservation of fish and wildlife. Our findings were published in a report entitled “An Assessment of Resource Management Planning in the National Landscape Conservation System.”
Our follow up report, “Climate Change Preparation Planning on National Landscape Conservation System Lands: Recommendations for Direction and Approach” will help agencies develop planning frameworks that will be implemented starting in 2010.
