A framework for climate-smart conservation and forest management

Background/Question/Methods

Land managers face the immense challenge of integrating the uncertainties of a changing climate into decisions that often span large spatial and temporal scales. The challenge of integration is actually twofold: first, sorting through a tremendous amount of research publication to find information that is credible, relevant, and understandable; second, finding realistic ways to consider and apply this information within existing decision-making processes, management practices, and operational constraints. To address these challenges, the Forest Service joined with partners to launch a pilot project in 2009 called the Climate Change Response Framework (www.forestadaptation.org). The Framework was designed to create and gather credible scientific information relevant to forest management and climate, foster close collaboration between scientists and managers, build useful tools that support diverse management goals, and finally seek to deliver products of these efforts in a timely and useful manner.  In building a comprehensive program that supports original science, synthesis and assessment, education, planning, and implementation, the goal was not to guide specific actions, but to instead foster climate-informed (“climate-smart”) decisions in meeting a wide variety of management objectives. Meeting the needs of numerous land management organizations through an “all-lands” approach required that the Framework be flexible enough to be applied at multiple spatial and temporal scales and adapt to diverse management goals. 

Results/Conclusions

From the original pilot in northern Wisconsin, the Framework is now being actively pursued in nine states in areas covering nearly 135 million acres in the Northwoods (MN, MI, WI), Central Hardwoods (MO, IL, IN), and Central Appalachians (OH, WV, MD). A pilot forest ecosystem vulnerability assessment  and forest adaptation resources book for northern Wisconsin have been published. Lessons learned from those efforts are being applied to five new vulnerability assessments and an expansion of the forest adaptation resources. There are currently over 50 non-profit, private, county, state, tribal, and federal organizations partnering in the ecoregional Framework projects. Several land management organizations are pursuing climate adaptation planning and implementation as demonstration projects. Cross-ownership dialogue about these adaptation demonstrations enhances learning and helps identify landscape-level opportunities and constraints. Climate challenges can most effectively be addressed by a community, and the Framework has successfully built a large-scale ecoregional network with widely diverse expertise, perspectives, and resources.