The Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy – A Regional Initiative for Sustaining Fish and Wildlife in the 21st Century

The Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) is a shared, long-term vision for lands and waters that sustain fish and wildlife populations and improve human quality of life in the southeast US and Caribbean. This vision provides regional focus for investments across organizations, disciplines, and partnerships on shared and proactive goals. The unique role of SECAS is to identify and support the steps necessary to regionally plan, implement, and evaluate actions that sustain habitat, mitigate threats, and adapt to future conditions. SECAS is supported by 6 LCCs, the SE Climate Science Center, SE Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, and SE Natural Resources Leadership Group.

Current and future generations fundamentally rely on the nation’s fish and wildlife resources and habitats, and the ecological systems upon which these resources depend are changing, subject to pressures such as climate change, urbanization, and habitat fragmentation. Simultaneously, advancements in conservation and decision theory, and the digital revolution, are creating opportunities for transformative change in the way conservation is planned and the way resources are managed. The SECAS vision is to: 1) Build a habitat network based on a common assessment of current resource conditions, alternative future scenarios, and shared conservation priorities; 2) Integrate existing conservation plans and designs across the Southeast; 3) Assess vulnerabilities to global change; 4) Understand and improve how resource management decisions are made, and; 5) Communicate the SECAS vision and develop tools to help partners implement that vision.