In an effort to address proactively the impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife and plants, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released a climate change strategic plan on September 23, positioning the issue as the agency's top priority. The plan is intended to allow the FWS to respond more capably to the impacts of climate change on natural resources and to frame how FWS employees will engage within the conservation community on the issue, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. A central premise of the strategy is positioning the agency to work collaboratively through partnerships and cooperatives with other state and federal agencies as well as the scientific and conservation communities.

The strategic plan resulted from more than a year of discussion and development within the agency. It "outlines a number of commitments intended to reshape the face of conservation and enable the agency to play a leading role in addressing the challenges of a changing climate system." Accompanying the strategic plan is a five-year action plan, developed by a team of career FWS employees. The action plan? specifically details how the FWS will implement the strategic plan most effectively.

"This is a big fundamental shift in how we do conservation work?and lays the foundation for the Service's role in national efforts to conserve fish and wildlife in a rapidly changing climate," said FWS Director Sam Hamilton. "We're going to move more into the landscape way of doing business and strategic habitat conservation."

The strategic plan focuses on adaptation as its core component directing the agency to lead the effort to create a national fish and wildlife adaptation strategy for the next 50 to 100 years. As part of this, the FWS will build regional and field technical capacity through partnerships called Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs), which will be guided by the Department of the Interior's newly created Climate Change Response Council. The LCCs will be the primary vehicle to develop and implement cutting-edge science for biological planning and conservation design, including habitat vulnerability assessments.

Specific landscape conservation actions will support adaptation to climate change including the promotion of? habitat connectivity and integrity, management of genetic resources and reduction of the susceptibility to diseases, pathogens and pests. In addition, the FWS will develop a National Biological Inventory and Monitoring Partnership to provide complete and objective information for adaptation efforts and landscape-level conservation. All of the agency's adaptation efforts will depend on building and sustaining partnerships across the conservation community.

Beyond the adaptation efforts, the strategic plan includes mitigation and engagement actions. The FWS pledges to achieve carbon neutrality by 2020, by reducing the carbon footprint of its operations and land-management activities; it will offset the remaining carbon balance. In addition, the agency will develop standards and best management practices for biological carbon sequestration while integrating sequestration into landscape conservation approaches. Finally, the FWS pledges to engage its employees and key constituencies through training, education and forums to exchange knowledge to seek solutions to climate-change impacts.

According to materials accompanying the strategic plan: "Climate change must become our [FWS] highest priority. Consequently, we will deploy our resources, creativity and energy in a long-term campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and safeguard fish, wildlife and their habitats. Our strategic plan commits us to reaching inward to every part of our organization and reaching outward to the larger conservation community to tackle climate change as a community venture and build the philosophies, relationships and capabilities needed to succeed. With all the steps laid out in this Action Plan, we will move forward enthusiastically in working across the conservation community to usher in a new era of interdependent conservation that will sustain fish, wildlife and their habitats in the face of climate change."

The FWS will be accepting comments on the plan through November 23, 2009. Go to its Website to?read the plan, or to make comments. (jas)