Lessons from considering climate change adaptation along a gradient of intactness across North America

WCS has initiated climate change adaptation planning for more than seven species and ecosystems in North American landscapes over the last four years.  These landscapes, varying in their level of intactness, include the Adirondacks, the Great Plains, the Yellowstone Rockies, Ontario’s Northern Boreal, and Arctic Alaska. The adaptation strategies and actions identified in response to the climate change impacts and vulnerabilities anticipated for each region and particular conservation target differed greatly. We found that options for “on the ground” management interventions toward resisting transitions diminished as the vulnerability of the conservation target and relative intactness increased. Recognition of this has led WCS to examine how we define and approach adaptation implementation, and to work with partners to re-evaluate conservation priorities and strategies. This includes altering where we and others focus conservation efforts, in addition to re-evaluating conservation goals for particular species and ecosystems. In several of the landscapes, an increasing focus on inevitable (if uncertain) ecological transitions has pushed us to spend more time looking ahead to what species and ecosystems might be gained from areas further south or lower in elevation. In the Arctic, for example, it has also led to the expansion of programs. WCS' Beringia Program is now focused on the regions on both sides of the Bering Strait, providing us with a larger geographic perspective on where conditions are most likely to change and to persist in the future.