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)

wildlifetrusts.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 changeArticulate 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

lienc

e

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 trustSome 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