Page:Land Protection Plan - Wyoming Toad Conservation Area.pdf/38

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Migratory waterbirds are similarly adapted to a particular range of climate-related habitat conditions, including the timing and amount of water provided by runoff as well as the phenology of plant emergence and growth. Again, as climate change causes these conditions to shift outside of their historical ranges of variability, populations of wetland and riparian birds are likely to be stressed in novel ways.

Adaptation, Mitigation, and Engagement

The Service’s strategic response to climate change involves three core strategies: adaptation, mitigation, and engagement (USFWS 2009). As the climate changes, the abundance and distribution of wildlife and fish will also change in response to changing habitat conditions. Some species will adapt successfully to a warming world, many will struggle, and others will disappear.

The exact changes in temperature and precipitation that the Laramie Plains will experience are unknown. Equally unknown are the responses of wildlife and habitats to these changes. For example, some species will be more vulnerable to climate change than others. To help fish and other wildlife species adapt, keeping large areas of intact wetlands, robust riparian corridors, and open spaces will become increasingly important. The project area provides an anticipatory, rather than a reactive, response.

Forests, grasslands, wetlands, and soils have a large influence on atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Carbon sequestration forms one of the key elements of mitigation. The World Resources Institute estimates that, of the global stock of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems, grasslands store approximately 34 percent, forests store approximately 39 percent, and agro-ecosystems store approximately 17 percent of the total (White et al. 2000). It is as important to protect existing carbon stores from further degradation as it is to sequester atmospheric carbon.

Historically, the destruction of wetlands through land use changes has had the largest effects on carbon fluxes and the resulting radiative forcing of North American wetlands. Radiative forcing is the measure of the amount that the Earth’s energy budget is out of balance. The primary effects have been a reduction in the ability of the wetlands to sequester carbon (a small to moderate increase in radiative forcing), oxidation of their soil carbon reserves on drainage (a small increase in radiative forcing), and reduction in methane emissions (a small to large decrease in radiative forcing). It is uncertain how global changes will affect the carbon pools and fluxes of North American wetlands (Bridgham et al. 2006). The WTCA project could secure the carbon already stored within the soils of the Laramie Plains by preventing the conversion of native vegetation to various types of development and thus preventing the carbon liberation that accompanies ground-disturbing development.

Engagement involves cooperation, communication, and partnerships to address the conservation challenges presented by climate change (USFWS 2009). The WTCA serves as a model for engagement by working with landowners, nongovernmental organizations, State agencies, and Federal agencies.

One of the key recommendations that came from a climate change workshop that was held by The Nature Conservancy was to coordinate management of shared resources. Given that some regions are experiencing warming more rapidly than others, natural resource managers would benefit by coordinating their activities with others who are managing common resources. Regional and coordinated management of shared habitat may be the only way to make sure that some habitat can be kept in a resilient state while other habitat transitions to a different state (Robles and Enquist 2010).

Taking action on these recommendations will be crucial for achieving conservation and management goals in the face of a changing climate. Reduced snowpack in the mountains combined with earlier seasonal melting caused by rising temperatures may increase the intensity and length of late summer droughts and reduce the availability of water, especially in the western United States. Finding enough water is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge for western fish and wildlife species. Spring is arriving earlier, and plants and animals are being found farther and farther north of their historical ranges in the U.S. Wildlife biologists are concerned that this will mean some migratory species may not arrive in their breeding habitats when, or where, their particular food sources are available.

For a thorough discussion of the effects of the easement and fee-title acquisition program, see chapter 4 of the EA in this volume (appendix A).