Climate Change Adaptation and Natural Areas Management is a collection of symposia, workshops, oral sessions, and field trips organized by a collaborative of state and federal agencies, NGOs, land trusts, and research and academic institutions, with the focus squarely on how land and resource managers can respond to climate change. For more information, read on below or watch some of last year’s presentations here.
Conference Theme
Climate warming is having accelerating impacts on North American ecosystems. In many places, climatic challenges to ecosystem health and sustainability are magnified by the effects of human land use and management, which have greatly altered the landscape, and the species, ecosystem structures and ecological processes that characterize it. These effects are synergistically driving trends in hydrology, mortality, wildfire severity, and habitat loss that threaten the sustainability of ecosystems across the country. Such trends also imperil human livelihoods and safety, the provision of essential ecosystem services, and even the character of the human-nature relationship.
It has been 25 years since the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. We have made assessments of the vulnerabilities of ecosystems and society to climate change across much of the U.S. In California, the state has developed a carbon cap-and-trade market and climate change mitigation efforts are underway, but most of the country has been slower to respond. Actual climate change adaptation efforts, management actions which seek to prevent or minimize ecological and social vulnerabilities to climate change, have only just begun. Many states have climate change adaptation strategies, and federal agencies have developed similar guidance, but the reality is that resource managers continue to struggle with fundamental questions about what concrete actions they might take, and whether such actions are likely to work.
The Event
In October, 2016, the Natural Areas Association (NAA), a national organization dedicated to supporting resource and conservation managers, will hold its annual conference in Davis, CA. The conference will focus on the nuts-and-bolts of climate change adaptation, with the target audience being organizations and individuals involved in on-the-ground natural areas management. The event and its content are being planned by a multiparty committee including individuals from federal and state agencies, NGOs, and research and academic institutions. Besides adaptation activities on the ground, the conference will cover how to plan and assess adaptation actions, new tools to support adaptation actions, & other management-oriented issues. Important topic areas for oral sessions, symposia, & workshops include connecting ecological restoration & adaptation, assisted migration, forest management, planting (seed zones, genetics, techniques), advances in tree genomics, use of native plant materials, prescribed fire, wildland fire use, meadow & stream restoration, sea-level rise, hydrology & connections to resource management, fisheries, invasive plants, pollinators, wildlife habitat, adaptation actions in rangelands, links between climate change and tree mortality, etc.
For Students
There will be a number of functions dedicated to students, including a speed networking session with resource professionals, conservation and resource management career sessions, sessions on using USA.JOBS and the federal PATHWAYS student employee program, student awards for papers and posters, and there are plans to include a hiring fair. Scholarships will also be offered to some students, based on need and ability to contribute to the conference.
*Check out the website for a detailed schedule of events.
