March 28, 2013 - It seems odd that this could have happened with so little
fanfare, but the Obama Administration announced its first national strategy for
dealing with climate change on Tuesday. This strategy, released in the form of a
report, was the product of any number of government agencies, with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
and the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation taking the lead. Developed with the help of over 90 federal,
state, tribal and local officials, the strategy recommends seven goals, among
them land conservation, species maintenance, and educating the public.
Land conservation and habitat loss mitigation are going to
play a huge role in implementing climate change strategy, because habitats
traditionally occupied by certain species have already been altered by global
warming. In the case of the Lesser
Prairie Chicken, the threats come from all sides: climate change, mining, oil production
and loss of habitat. Because the
government already pays farmers and ranchers to remove land from production in
order to create wildlife refuges, it will be possible to return some of it to
native prairie, thereby offsetting Lesser Prairie Chicken habitat loss.
Other species urgently in need of assistance include brook
trout, coral reefs, and salmon. One
member of the plant kingdom on this list is the Joshua Tree, for which Joshua
Tree National Park (JTNP) is named.
Unless matters improve, the Joshua Tree will have disappeared from its
habitat in southern California almost entirely by the year 2100. This took me a bit by surprise because I just
visited JTNP and saw the ugly Joshua Tree for the first time. While not what you would describe as a visual
treat, in a landscape which consists of rocks and little else, the hardy Joshua
Tree affords the eye some relief from the weathered tan that surrounds
onlookers. It has earned its ecological
niche, but that does not guarantee its survival.
Deciding which species to help will be a very pragmatic
process involving difficult decisions.
According to Dan Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
hunting, fishing and other wildlife-related activities contribute $120 billion
to the economy every year. In addition,
the seafood industry has a value of $116 billion. Those species that contribute only their
beauty or their rarity to humankind, without impacting the public coffers, may
not get much in the way of help. There
apparently is just not enough to go around, and too many creatures in distress.
Nevertheless, over the next five years, the priorities
established in the report will begin to be addressed. One of these consists of establishing
wildlife “corridors” that would enable animals and plants to move to new habitat. It will not always be necessary for the
government to buy land in order to accomplish this goal. Many times, easements and land trusts can be
set aside by working with state and local authorities. Because of an easement that exists on private
land in Florida, one of the last remaining corridors for panthers is protected. Where large tracts of land are involved, the
federal government can sometimes step in.
The current administration has added ten new wildlife habitats, totaling
4.5 million acres, thus far.
Taken all in all, Tuesday’s announcement was good, if not
necessarily happy, news.
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