Abstract

EcoAdapt, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and California Landscape Conservation Cooperative (CA LCC) hosted the Adaptation Planning Workshop for the Sierra Nevada June 4-5, 2013 in Sacramento, California. The goal of the workshop was to identify management strategies that will help regionally important ecosystems and species adapt to changing climate conditions and to lay the groundwork for adaptation action. Thirty-two attendees representing 21 public agencies (including national forests), non-governmental organizations, and others participated in the workshop.

The objectives of the workshop were to:

1. Collaboratively identify management and conservation goals and objectives for focal resources.
2. Present outcomes of spatial analysis and mapping to facilitate adaptation planning.
3. Develop adaptation strategies to reduce the identified vulnerabilities of resources (from an associated vulnerability assessment workshop) and increase positive long-term outcomes for regional management goals.
4. Create a list of implementation needs to facilitate incorporation of adaptation strategies into regional planning and management activities.
5. Provide climate change adaptation training, resources, support, and tools to participants to extend this process to similar efforts in their own work.

Over two days of presentations, discussion and small working groups, managers, scientists, and conservation practitioners identified adaptation strategies for six focal resources: alpine/subalpine systems, Sierra Nevada and southern mountain yellow-legged frogs, yellow pine/mixed conifer systems, red fir systems, wet meadows and fens, and oak woodlands.

Key outcomes of the workshop were:

1. Refined management goals and objectives for focal resources.
2. Evaluation of management objective feasibility given climate and non-climate stressors.
3. A suite of adaptation approaches and actions for each focal resource that can be implemented to help achieve management objectives in the face of climate change.
4. A prioritized list of adaptation actions for resources across the Sierra Nevada.
5. Group-developed implementation plans for prioritized actions.

Participants identified a suite of adaptation actions for each of the focal resources and developed draft implementation plans for priority actions. Example adaptation actions for each focal resource considered are described below. Details of these and other workshop-derived adaptation actions are presented in Sections 3-7.

Affiliated Organizations

EcoAdapt

EcoAdapt is at the center of climate change adaptation innovation. We provide support, training, and assistance to make conservation and management less vulnerable and more Climate Savvy. Over the past 200 years, great strides have been made in the world of conservation and now all of that is at risk because of climate change. EcoAdapt is working to ensure the success of these past efforts by delivering a framework for climate adaptation.

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California Landscape Conservation Cooperative

The CA LCC is a management-science partnership created to inform and promote integrated science, natural resource management and conservation to address impacts of climate change and other stressors within and across ecosystems.

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USDA Forest Service

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service is a Federal agency that manages public lands in national forests and grasslands. The Forest Service is also the largest forestry research organization in the world, and provides technical and financial assistance to state and private forestry agencies. Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, summed up the purpose of the Forest Service—"to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run."

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