Administration releases climate strategy for plants, wildlife

It also aims to prioritize water scarcity, habitat and other projects most affected by climate change.
 
“The growing impacts from climate change on wildlife, plants, and watersheds call for a coordinated and strategic response from the department and its bureaus,” Tom Strickland, assistant Interior secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, said. “The service’s plan is both a call to arms and a clear roadmap for action. It is firmly rooted in sound science, an adaptive, landscape-scale conservation approach, and collaboration with partners.”
 
It does not call for new regulations or permits.

The plan establishes an initial $25 million investment this year to set up landscape conservation cooperatives, so the Fish and Wildlife Service can collaborate with states and conservation groups on regional climate change issues.
 
It would also set up a new National Biological Inventory and Monitoring Partnership between federal agencies and conservation groups to compile data on the effects of climate change on plants and wildlife.
 
Eighteen months in the making, the plan is built on a directive by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to the department to consider climate change in its decisions and activities.
 
The strategy won the quick backing of former Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappaport Clark, now executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife.
 
The plan “is an essential first step,” he said. “Now, more than ever, we need a national strategy to guide and coordinate efforts to help wildlife and natural resources adapt to life in a warming world.”
 
Others were less impressed.
 
“Despite the sobering and generally accurate analysis, this report still doesn't expand a single species' protected habitat or a single factory's
 greenhouse pollution,” said Bill Snape, a senior counsel with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is that kind of heavy lifting we need now.”

Source: thehill.com