North America

How did the forest and community get to the point where they were willing to take on managing a fire of this size and duration for resource benefit and hazard reduction? Science has recognized for decades that many forested ecosystems of the American West are shifting away from historically fire-adapted conditions. Beginning in the 1970’s a small handful of managers recognized this issue and developed wildland fire use concepts.

The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that the U.S.

Establishment of marine protected areas, including fully protected marine reserves, is one of the few management tools available for local communities to combat the deleterious effect of large scale environmental impacts, including global climate change, on ocean ecosystems. Despite the common hope that reserves play this role, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of local protection against global problems is lacking. Here we show that marine reserves increase the resilience of marine populations to a mass mortality event possibly caused by climate-driven hypoxia.

This research has shown that kelp forest restoration is possible in barrens when purple urchins are selectively removed.

Climate change, along with pollution and overfishing, is one of the great challenges facing North America’s shared oceans today. Through the project Engaging Communities to Conserve Marine Biodiversity through NAMPAN (North American Marine Protected Areas Network)1 the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) gathered scientific information on the impact of climate change on marine protected area (MPA) networks to improve the design and management process for healthier, more resilient oceans.

Hear from the creators and early users of the new Commission for Environmental Cooperation North American Marine Protected Area Rapid Vulnerability Assessment Tool. This tool designed in a collaborative process that included EcoAdapt, the Commission on Environmental Cooperation and west coast of North America marine protected area managers and scientists. The tool was designed to help marine protected area managers evaluate the implications of climate change for the habitats of their sites.

The North American Marine Protected Area Rapid Vulnerability Assessment Tool was created to help marine protected area managers evaluate the implications of climate change for the habitats of their sites.

In summer 2009, the effects of 6 years of landscape-level experimental nutrient enrichment on the eastern mudsnail, Nassarius obsoletus (formerly Ilyanassa obsoleta), were examined. The experiment was conducted in five tidal creeks (two nutrient-enriched, three reference creeks) in the Plum Island Estuary, Massachusetts, USA. (42°44′ N, 70°52′ W). After 6 years of enrichment, N. obsoletus size structure differed between treatment creeks with adult snails on average 14% larger in enriched creeks. N.

The purpose of this report is to provide an up-to-date review of the extent to which climate change is occurring in the Y2Y region, and to assess the appropriateness of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative’s vision and programs as a response to climate disruption. Even the most optimistic models forecast that if greenhouse-gas emissions could be reined in today, and climate change mitigation efforts optimized, the momentum of global climate change could not be stopped for at least another century.