Step 3 Reviewing/Revising Goals

1. Step 3 Reviewing/Revising Goals Nicholas Fisichelli, Cat Hawkins Hoffman NPS Climate Change Response Program

2. 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

3. Where we are…

4. Step 3Review/Revise Conservation Goals Inputs Outputs Agreed-upon set of climate-informed conservation targets, goals, management objectives • Existing targets, goals, management objectives • Understanding of system/target vulnerabilities Review/ Revise Conservation Goals

5. Start where you are How 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)

6. Why reconsider our conservation goals? Climate change exposes lack of specificity in our goals “I know it when I see it…” maintain natural abundance, diversity, and genetic and ecological integrity of (native) plant and animal species… natural? conserve biodiversity… species? genetic? provide favorable feeding, nesting, and roosting habitat for trust species on the refuge… favorable?

7. Why reconsider our conservation goals? Climate change challenges existing strategies Out of Reach… Aiming “backwards” towards the historic range of variability as a management target will be increasingly futile

8. Why reconsider our conservation goals? Climate change challenges existing strategies Out of Reach… ….Out of style Aiming “backwards” towards the historic range of variability as a management target will be increasingly futile wildlifetrusts.org “Our dominant conservation strategy, the designation of reserves, is mismatched to a world that is increasingly dynamic.” (Comacho, et al, 2010)

9. Why reconsider our conservation goals? Climate change may alter our values and priorities Evolving needs and demands in times of drought… maintaining adequate water supplies for agricultural areas or waterfowl conservation dfg.ca.gov celcius.com

10. Why reconsider our conservation goals? Climate change may alter our values and priorities Evolving needs and demands under sea level rise… coastal homes, or salt marsh learnnc.org bneinc.com

11. Class Discussion: Existing Goals and Objectives 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 Maintain healthy rangeland ecosystems with livestock grazing to provide a desirable mix of age class and species composition.

12. Class Discussion ….what, why, where, when Goal for Bonneville cutthroat trout 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. What (conservation target) Why (intended outcomes or desired conditions) Where (relevant geographic scope) When (relevant timeframe)

13. What are “climate-informed” goals? “Enhance Resilience”…what’s under the label? Same goal, different reason = “climate-informed” Climate-informed goals… resilience Specifically consider climate change Articulate acceptable future conditions Are forward-looking Acknowledge potential trade-offs Consider broader landscape context roystonlabels.co.uk Flexible in short-term, for long term effectiveness…avoid maladaptation

14. Climate-informed goals may consider… Shift from patterns of composition and structure Anna’s Hummingbird range… moving north

15. 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)

16. Climate-informed goals may… Scale up to maintain diversity across larger landscapes

17. Climate-informed goals… Explicitly acknowledge change “…steward…resources for continuous change that is not yet fully understood” “Revisiting Leopold” “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.” billfrymire.com

18. Persistence and Change New paradigm: from preservation/restoration… to open anticipation… to active facilitation of ecological change e.g. forests to shrubland fs.fed.us

19. Persistence and Change A spectrum of change… Change Persistence May be useful to alternate between the concepts of persistence and change in framing goals and shaping expectations Definition of temporal and spatial scale important Maintain full diversity of native species at landscape scale (persistence); accept that species within a jurisdiction will be different (change) Maintain conditions in localized refugia (persistence) while conditions in surrounding habitats evolve (change)

20. Challenges Authority Can address climate change from every level Legal Constraints Show stoppers are rare nwifc.org NWF Beth Pratt

21. Challenges • Psychological barriers and trust • Some may include: • Costs &/or momentum • Perceived risks • Positive but inadequate changes • Limits of our knowledge • Not a new situation • Show your work

22. Start where you are “I couldn’t wait for success, so I started without it.” Jonathan Winters