[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE IMPACTS OF
CLIMATE CHANGE ON
AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS
AND PUBLIC LANDS
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-16
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
or
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Chairman
DOC HASTINGS, Washington, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Don Young, Alaska
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Elton Gallegly, California
Samoa John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii Jeff Flake, Arizona
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey Henry E. Brown, Jr., South
Grace F. Napolitano, California Carolina
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Louie Gohmert, Texas
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Rob Bishop, Utah
Jim Costa, California Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Dan Boren, Oklahoma Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Gregorio Sablan, Northern Marianas Adrian Smith, Nebraska
Martin T. Heinrich, New Mexico Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
George Miller, California Paul C. Broun, Georgia
Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts John Fleming, Louisiana
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Mike Coffman, Colorado
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Jason Chaffetz, Utah
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Cynthia M. Lummis, Wyoming
Islands Tom McClintock, California
Diana DeGette, Colorado Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Lois Capps, California
Jay Inslee, Washington
Joe Baca, California
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South
Dakota
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts
Frank Kratovil, Jr., Maryland
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
James H. Zoia, Chief of Staff
Rick Healy, Chief Counsel
Todd Young, Republican Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Republican Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS AND PUBLIC LANDS
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona, Chairman
ROB BISHOP, Utah, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Don Young, Alaska
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii Elton Gallegly, California
Grace F. Napolitano, California John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Jeff Flake, Arizona
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Henry E. Brown, Jr., South
Dan Boren, Oklahoma Carolina
Martin T. Heinrich, New Mexico Louie Gohmert, Texas
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Paul C. Broun, Georgia
Islands Mike Coffman, Colorado
Diana DeGette, Colorado Cynthia M. Lummis, Wyoming
Ron Kind, Wisconsin Tom McClintock, California
Lois Capps, California Doc Hastings, Washington, ex
Jay Inslee, Washington officio
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South
Dakota
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia,
ex officio
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Tuesday, April 7, 2009........................... 1
Statement of Members:
Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Napolitano, Hon. Grace F., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California.................................... 3
Statement of Witnesses:
Cipra, Michael, California Desert Program Manager, National
Parks Conservation Association, Joshua Tree, California.... 71
Prepared statement of.................................... 72
Coleman, John, Senior Meteorologist, KUSI, San Diego,
California................................................. 42
Prepared statement of.................................... 44
Harja, John, Director, Public Lands Policy Coordination,
Office of Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., on behalf of
the Western Governors' Wildlife Council, Salt Lake City,
Utah....................................................... 18
Prepared statement of.................................... 20
Jarvis, Jonathan B., Regional Director, Pacific West Region,
National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior,
Oakland, California........................................ 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Keiter, Robert B., J.D., Wallace Stegner Distinguished
Professor of Law, Director, Wallace Stegner Center for
Land, Resources and the Environment, University of Utah
S.J. Quinney College of Law, Salt Lake City, Utah.......... 54
Prepared statement of.................................... 58
Shaw, M. Rebecca, Ph.D., Director of Conservation Programs,
The Nature Conservancy of California, San Francisco,
California................................................. 23
Prepared statement of.................................... 25
Swetnam, Thomas W., Professor of Dendrochronology and
Watershed Management, and Director, Laboratory of Tree-Ring
Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona........... 33
Prepared statement of.................................... 35
Watson, Melyssa L., Senior Director for Wilderness, The
Wilderness Society, Durango, California.................... 64
Prepared statement of.................................... 66
OVERSIGHT FIELD HEARING ON ``THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AMERICA'S
NATIONAL PARKS''
----------
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
Committee on Natural Resources
Twentynine Palms, California
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., City
Council Chambers, 6134 Adobe Road, Twentynine Palms,
California, Hon. Raul Grijalva [Chairman of the Subcommittee]
presiding.
Present: Representatives Grijalva and Napolitano.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAUL GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much. And let me call the
Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands to
order. This is an oversight hearing on the impact of climate
change on America's national parks.
Today our Subcommittee will be conducting the second in a
series of oversight hearings to explore the role of Federal
lands in combating climate change. Our focus today will be on
the effects on our treasured national parks, some of which face
serious threats to characteristic resources. It's really
difficult to imagine Glacier National Park without glaciers,
Joshua Tree National Park without these trees. Yet the evidence
is clear that we may be facing just that kind of future. The
impacts of climate change on our Federal lands are staggering.
Science shows that climate change will cause the spread of
invasive species, threaten native species, endanger watersheds,
cause habitat loss, and increase the intensity and length of
the fire season on our public lands.
Today we will be hearing more about these impacts and
suggested policy solutions by reputable scientists, such as Dr.
Swetnam from the University of Arizona and Rebecca Shaw of The
Nature Conservancy.
There are two potential climate change solutions which the
Subcommittee is exploring today, as we did at a previous
hearing in March that focused on the national forests and lands
owned by the Bureau of Land Management. The first is climate
change adaptation. Jon Jarvis of the National Park Service will
be talking about some of the steps the agency is starting to
take in this regard, from scenario planning to improving what
many call resilience--the ability of natural systems to respond
to changing conditions.
Mr. John Harja from the Western Governor's Association and
some of our other witnesses will be talking about connecting
habitat in order for wildlife to adapt to the impacts of
climate change.
The second solution we are exploring is whether some of the
key laws under the jurisdiction of the Committee on National
Resources adequately reflect the reality of climate change.
These laws include the National Environmental Policy Act, or
NEPA, as well as various organic acts from the land management
agencies.
Today we'll be hearing from Bob Keiter of the University of
Utah who has been studying such questions for several years.
President Obama has made climate change a top issue in his
agenda, and climate change and Federal lands will be a key
agenda item for this Subcommittee in this Congress.
I feel strongly that while our public lands are threatened
by climate change, they are also critical in finding solutions
to combat climate change. As Congress goes about developing
climate change legislation, I will work to ensure that there is
a role for Federal lands.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. And let
me take the time to thank the Park Service staff for their
courtesy and generosity of time and schedule. I also want to
thank the Mayor and City Council for the use of these fine
facilities, It is very much appreciated. I appreciate it very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Raul M. Grijalva, Chairman,
Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
Today our Subcommittee will be conducting the second in a series of
oversight hearings to explore the role of federal lands in combating
climate change. Our focus today will be the effects on our treasured
national parks, some of which face serious threats to characteristic
resources. It's hard to imagine Glacier National Park without glaciers,
or Joshua Tree National Park without those trees. Yet the evidence is
clear that we may be facing just such a future.
The impacts of climate change on our federal lands are staggering.
Science shows that climate change will cause a spread of invasive
species, threaten native species, endanger watersheds, cause habitat
loss, and increase the intensity and length of the fire season on our
public lands. Today we will be hearing more about these impacts, and
suggested policy solutions, by reputable scientists such as Tom Swetnam
from the University of Arizona and Rebecca Shaw of The Nature
Conservancy.
There are two potential climate change solutions that the
subcommittee is exploring today, as we did at a previous hearing in
March that focused on national forest lands and lands owned by the
Bureau of Land Management. The first is climate change adaptation. Jon
Jarvis of the National Park Service will be talking about some of the
steps the agency is starting to take in this regard, from scenario
planning to improving what many call resilience--the ability of natural
systems to respond to changing conditions. John Harja from the Western
Governors' Association and some of our other witnesses will be talking
about connecting habitat in order for wildlife to adapt to the impacts
of climate change.
A second solution we are exploring is whether some of the key laws
under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Natural Resources adequately
reflect the reality of climate change. These laws include the National
Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, as well as the various organic acts
for the land management agencies. Today, we will be hearing from Bob
Keiter of the University of Utah, who has been studying such questions
for several years.
President Obama has made climate change a top issue on his agenda,
and climate change and federal lands will be a key agenda item for our
Subcommittee this Congress. I feel strongly that while our public lands
are threatened by climate change, they are also critical in finding
solutions to combat climate change. As Congress goes about developing
climate change legislation, I will work to ensure that there is a role
for federal lands.
I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today. I would
now like to turn to my colleague Mrs. Napolitano for any opening
statement she may have.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Now let me turn to my colleague on the
Committee on Natural Resources, the Chair of the Subcommittee
on Water and Power, Mrs. Napolitano, for any opening statement
she may have.
Madame Chair.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Chairman Grijalva, for the
hearing on public lands' service to the whole area of the
United States, especially in California.
To the witnesses, thank you for your cooperation and your
being transparent in telling us some of the things that are
happening and we don't normally hear in Washington nor, if we
don't live in the area, we certainly are not affected by them.
But we know that there are things that will affect the rest of
the country, and we must work together to preserve the
wilderness and the water management on our public lands.
In the Subcommittee on Water and Power that I chair, we're
very concerned about the drought in the whole Western States,
especially in California. And the fact that if we do continue
to have more evaporation, we need to find the ability to store
underground in aquifers. We need to be able to understand how
we can capture and maintain more water in the watershed areas.
I know we need to invest more than has been invested in the
last eight years in the research on what impact the water
drought and climate change have on our public lands and its
environment. The need to protect our plants and wildlife is
something that we have overlooked. And it is critical for us to
understand the role it plays in preservation of our air, our
water, and certainly our environment and, of course, to that
end, the economy. Because it does affect our economy.
We must work with the National Park Service on combating
climate change and implementing conservation strategies goes
without question. It's something that even local communities,
local councils are aware of. This need must be included when
bringing forth testimony on how they also want to be part of
finding workable solutions.
Thank you, Chairman Grijalva. It's good to be here in this
beautiful area, and I trust that you'll come back and see us
more often.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, very much.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. I'd like to thank the gentlelady
from California for giving me permission to visit this
beautiful state.
Again, let me thank the witnesses for traveling to be here
with us today. We look forward to your testimony. It is going
to be vital in shaping the legislation that we hope to propose
in the very near future.
Let me remind the witnesses that your written statements
and any other extraneous information you wish to submit to the
Committee will be made part of the record. And if you could
limit your oral remarks to five minutes or so. I'm not a real
stern timekeeper, but when Dom tells me that I've become too
lax, I will have to ask you to wrap up. And that will allow
Mrs. Napolitano and me some time to ask some questions.
Let me now start with Mr. Jon Jarvis, Regional Director,
National Park Service Pacific West region.
Thank you, sir. And welcome. I look forward to your
comments.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN B. JARVIS, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, PACIFIC
WEST REGION, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
giving us this opportunity.
Congresswoman Napolitano, thank you also for joining us
here today.
We are very pleased that you have chosen Joshua Tree
National Park and Twentynine Palms as the site for the field
hearing because this park has been a leader in addressing
climate change and becoming an environmental sustainability
leader as well.
Secretary Salazar has made the issue of climate change a
top priority within the Department of the Interior, and as such
has called upon all of the bureaus to work together in an
unprecedented manner to address this concern, the National Park
Service being just one of those. The BIA, U.S. Geological
Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land
Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and Minerals Management
Service are all working together on this issue.
Climate change is potentially the most far-reaching and
consequential challenge to our mission than any other previous
challenge in the entire history of the National Park Service.
It challenges the very foundation of the National Park System
and our ability to leave America's national and cultural
heritage unimpaired for future generations.
As your stewards of America's natural and cultural
heritage, we have an obligation to act now. There are serious
consequences if we delay action.
But I want to focus on what we are seeing now in the
national parks, what programs do we already have underway, the
actions that are involving mitigation, adaptation, and
communication, and then the role that research and monitoring
play in ecosystem resilience.
Already we are seeing glaciers melting in our mountain
parks. We are seeing species moving up in elevation. We are
seeing higher mortality in forests from beetle infestations.
Our fire seasons are longer and more intense. We are seeing
archeological sites damaged by fire and potentially by sea
level rise.
As you know, our coastal systems are the most productive
systems in the country in terms of shellfish and recreational
fishing and commercial fishing. All of those will be challenged
by sea level rises.
We are already seeing coral bleaching in the Virgin
Islands. And as you've mentioned yourself, the Joshua trees
here, the namesake of this national park, based on the
predictive models of warmer winters and increased rain, the
Joshua tree itself may be threatened to no longer exist in this
park.
In Alaska where I worked for five years in the bush,
subsistence resources that are heavily relied on by rural
residents and native Alaskans are being threatened by climate
change as well.
As I mentioned, this will require an unprecedented level of
cooperation across the landscape of the Department of the
Interior and all of our partner land management organizations
as well.
We have, the National Park Service, created a strategic
framework to begin to address some of these things, working
with other agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency
as well. We have a Climate Friendly Parks program, of which now
60 parks are participating.
The first and foremost aspect of that is leading by
example. And that is reducing our own carbon footprint. Of
course our big natural areas are already sequestering carbon,
but we are really looking at how our operations can be changed
so that we reduce our own footprint. So emissions, inventories,
climate action planning, looking at energy conservation, and
looking at opportunities for renewable energy through the
Energy SmartPARKS Program are all ways that we can reduce our
carbon footprint and become a visible leader in environmental
sustainability.
Our region is also already well in advance of this. This
park, for instance, already generates 40 percent of its energy
from renewable resources.
We need to begin adaptation in terms of our planning and
really look to maintaining ecosystem integrity. The key to that
is long-term monitoring and good research as well. We have a
tremendous opportunity to communicate that information to the
public as well.
As we observe the changes in climate, our visitation is
over 275 million visitors to parks, and it's a great
opportunity to educate them about what we are seeing and what
actions they can take at home.
We are in the process of looking at multiple-working
futures for our parks. With the variety of scientific scenarios
in the future we have to be thinking about different planning
regimes for our parks as well.
Joshua Tree has been, again, one of those places that this
work has been a model for the rest of the Mojave Desert. So, we
are really into scenario and adaptation planning as the major
goal for the National Park Service over the next ten years.
As I mentioned, the National Park Service is ideally
positioned to bring climate awareness to the American public
and to the rest of the world. As we seek solutions and as we
see problems, we want to engage the public. So looking forward,
the National Park Service has a goal that every national park
will have some form of exhibit providing information through
brochures, waysides, interpretive programs, handouts, and
websites to talk about climate change, and also how we
ourselves are addressing those issues.
Again, we are looking at this as not just affecting natural
resources. I want to emphasize that cultural resources are both
at risk and an opportunity as well. Through historic
preservation of existing structures we are able to preserve the
embedded energy in carbon in these structures and interpret
them as well.
We are currently developing a Visitor Do Your Part program
which will allow visitors to voluntarily measure their own
carbon footprint as they travel to parks. Alternative
transportation activities with our gateway communities and our
partners are also one of the ways that we will be addressing
climate change and reducing our carbon footprint.
Clearly we know that boundaries of national parks are
inadequate to address the issues of climate change. Working
with our neighbor, land management agencies, with the
establishment of corridors and opportunities for migratory
wildlife to move between protected areas is absolutely
essential to climate change as well.
So, in conclusion, the key components to the National Park
Service program are to monitor the change and report that out;
to use our parks as the canaries in the mine for research; to
lead in sustainability, both in reducing our own carbon
footprint but also being a beacon for the American public in
terms of our own sustainability; and educate the public about
climate change. Sixty-five percent of our park visitors are
repeat visitors. They provide extraordinary opportunities to
demonstrate the changes that have occurred to the parks from
climate change. And to cooperate across borders with all of our
partners in addressing climate change.
Thank you for this opportunity. And I am open to any
questions.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Jarvis.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jarvis follows:]
Statement of Jonathan B. Jarvis, Regional Director,, Pacific West
Region, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to present testimony on the role of the Department of the
Interior (DOI) and the National Park Service (NPS) in addressing
climate change impacts on America's greatest treasures--units of the
National Park System.
Secretary Salazar has prioritized the issue of climate change
within the Department of the Interior. He is in the process of
designing a climate change strategy to integrate the work of each
Bureau to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change in the
pursuit of each Bureau's mission--this includes the National Park
Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of
Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Reclamation, and
Minerals Management Service. In 2008 the Department of the Interior had
a multi-agency taskforce that put forth a number of recommendations
relating to climate change adaptation and mitigation activities. The
Department works closely on many levels with NOAA and the U.S. Forest
Service in coordinating activities relating to climate change.
An integration of science, adaptive management tools, and other
resources across the Federal Government is essential to the DOI's
mission to address climate change across all federal lands, wildlife,
and cultural and natural resources (including mitigation, adaptation,
and communication/engagement strategies) and to the NPS' mission to do
the same. We are pleased that you chose Joshua Tree National Park as
the site of this field hearing since this is a good example of a desert
park whose resources are being impacted by climate change.
Climate change is potentially the most far-reaching and
consequential challenge to our mission than any previously encountered
in the entire history of the NPS. In setting aside Yellowstone National
Park in 1872, Congress stated that the purpose of the park was:
preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral
deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders, within the park, and
their retention in their natural condition.
This concept of ``retention in their natural condition'' became the
cornerstone of our National Park System when Congress passed the
National Park Service Organic Act, which states that the mission of the
NPS is:
...to promote and regulate the use of the...national
parks...which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the
natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to
provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by
such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of
future generations.
Climate change challenges the very foundation of the National Park
System and our ability to leave America's natural and cultural heritage
unimpaired for future generations. Our national park units can serve as
the proverbial canary in the coal mine, a place where we can monitor
and document ecosystem change without many of the stressors that are
found on other public lands.
DOI and the NPS are rising to this challenge, and today my
testimony will focus on four major areas. First, our observations of
the effects and potential future changes related to climate change in
national park units. Second, the actions and programs we have underway
to prepare for the current and anticipated changes from climate change.
Third, some of the actions the NPS plans to undertake in the coming
years. And fourth, some other considerations related to climate change.
The Effects of Climate Change in National Park Units
Parks are already experiencing some dramatic impacts that may be
resulting from climate change. Warming temperatures may be accelerating
melting of mountain glaciers in national parks such as Glacier and
North Cascades while perennial snowfields throughout Alaska are
disappearing. Reduced snowpack and changes in the timing and amount of
stream flow affect aquatic communities. Alaskan parks are seeing some
of the earliest impacts of possible climate change--melting sea ice
threatens marine mammals as well as coastal communities, while thawing
permafrost can destabilize buildings, roads, and facilities and disrupt
the structural basis of large regions of interior lands. In Yosemite
and Great Basin National Parks, we have documented high-elevation
species, such as the pika and alpine chipmunk, moving upslope, thereby
reducing the effective area for their survival; this upslope migration
may be attributable to changes in climate. In Bandelier and Rocky
Mountain National Parks, higher temperatures and drought have brought
high mortality to pine forests as infestations of bark and pine beetles
have expanded to higher elevations and new ranges that may also be
occurring because of climate change. (Parmesan 2006, Marcogliese 2001)
Fire frequency and intensity may also be related to climate change.
NPS data indicates that fire ignitions are occurring both earlier and
later in the season now and the average duration of time that a
wildfire burns has increased from less than 10 days to more than a
month. Fires in some places may be increasing in frequency and
intensity, threatening native plant communities and contributing to the
spread of invasive exotic species. Wildland fire frequency and
intensity can have a significant impact on cultural resources, as
hotter fires and our efforts to fight them directly damage buried
archeological sites. At Mesa Verde National Park, fires have damaged
historic structures and threatened the loss of archeological sites
according to NPS data. (Westerling 2006)
Coastal parks are extremely vulnerable to climate change. The NPS
manages 74 coastal units encompassing more than 5,100 miles of coast
and three million acres of submerged resources including beaches,
wetlands, estuaries, coral reefs, and kelp forests. These parks attract
more than 75 million visitors every year, and generate over $2.5
billion in economic benefits to local communities. The U.S. Climate
Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product on Coastal
Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise (2009) states:
Critical coastal ecosystems such as wetlands, estuaries, and
coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Such
ecosystems are among the most biologically productive
environments in the world.
These coastal ecosystems are significant habitats for the
production and health of recreationally and commercially valuable fish
and shellfish, they provide important environmental services, and offer
beautiful landscapes for marine recreation and wildlife watching. These
ecosystems are predicted to change as sea level, ocean acidity, and
water temperatures rise. Shorelines and park boundaries will change as
sea level rises resulting in a net loss where parks cannot migrate
inland. At Everglades National Park, rising seas may overwhelm the
mangrove communities that filter out saltwater and maintain the
freshwater wetlands. Indeed, changes have already been observed as
coral bleaching and disease caused by increased sea surface
temperatures led to the loss of more than 50 percent of reef-building
corals in the Virgin Islands park units since 2005. (IPPC 2001, Hoegh-
Guldberg 1999, Buddemeier 2004) Increasing the resilience and adaptive
capacity of coastal ecosystems will be critical to maintaining their
enormous biological value and ecological services to the nation and
local communities. NPS's Organic Act uniquely positions us to work
cooperatively with states, local agencies and the public to address the
cumulative impacts of overfishing, pollution, and coastal development
that aggravate and accelerate the effects of climate change on these
valuable ecosystems.
While some impacts from climate change are already measurable, the
long-range effects of climate disruption on park natural and cultural
resources, infrastructure, and visitor experience are just beginning to
be understood. Here at Joshua Tree, the park may lose its namesake
species as warmer winters cause the freezing temperatures required for
the trees' reproduction to occur less frequently. The policy
implications for protecting species in a rapidly changing climate are
complex and without precedent.
Cultural resources will also be significantly affected by climate
change, primarily due to increased erosion from rising seas and more
intense storm (and hurricane) surge. Rising sea levels are already
damaging archeological sites, historic structures, and cultural
landscapes such as Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas and Jamestown.
Sea level rise and storms threaten the tangible remains of some of the
earliest human occupation sites, dating back over 10,000 years, along
the west coast, as well as associated Native American burial grounds at
places like Channel Islands National Park and shell middens on the Gulf
Coast of Everglades National Park. Alternately, decreasing lake levels
expose vulnerable archeological resources and critical park
infrastructure in places like Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Our
nation's maritime history, including lighthouses from Massachusetts to
Oregon, historic forts including Fort Jefferson and Fort Sumter, and
historic coastal communities also face threats from rising seas and
more intense storm surges.
The 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA)
created 10 Alaskan parks and expanded parklands by 43 million acres. It
also recognized the critical importance of access to subsistence
resources found in parks, including fish, game, and plants, to both
Native and non-Native residents of rural Alaska, and directly linked
this access to their continued physical, economic, social, traditional,
and cultural existence. While the threats that climate change poses to
salmon, caribou, and seals may be viewed as threats to natural
resources, they also clearly challenge our ability to provide
appropriate subsistence opportunities to local rural residents around
our units in Alaska.
Many questions exist regarding how physical processes, species
populations, and ecosystems will respond to a changing climate. The
science of predicting the complexities of these interactions over
relatively long periods of time is highly uncertain, yet the NPS is
committed to understanding and monitoring the effects of climate change
on park resources and ecosystems. The focus of the climate change
discussion has largely shifted from the evidence to what we can do
about it. As stewards of our nation's natural and cultural heritage, we
have an obligation to act now.
Current Climate Change Actions and Programs
To effectively respond to the challenges of climate change, the DOI
is undertaking a collective and coordinated strategy that builds upon
and expands existing partnerships such as those between NPS, other
bureaus, parks, regions, and national program offices. Building the
capacity to respond to climate change will involve identifying,
linking, prioritizing, and implementing a range of short and long-term
activities. The complex and cross-cutting nature of this issue will
require an unprecedented level of cooperation across the DOI Bureaus,
other federal and state agencies, the entire NPS, and our partner
organizations.
Because climate change has been identified as one of highest
priorities for the NPS, many actions and activities have already been
undertaken at parks and within regions. The NPS is now in the process
of developing a strategic framework for action that will detail short
and long-term actions in three major areas: mitigation, adaptation, and
communication. The NPS has hired a Climate Change Coordinator and
created six working groups--Legal & Policy; Planning; Science; Resource
Stewardship; Greenhouse Gas Emission & Sustainable Operations, and
Communication. We will use the information from these groups to develop
a strategic framework for action that will address park, regional, and
national-level needs and concerns.
Over the past three years, the NPS has hosted or participated in a
series of regional and interagency workshops to explore climate change
impacts and coping strategies. In conjunction with the Environmental
Protection Agency in 2003, the NPS initiated the Climate Friendly Parks
Program to promote sustainable operations in parks and create climate
action plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; almost 60 parks now
participate. The NPS also requires Environmental Management System
Plans that help parks track and reduce their environmental impacts and
set targets for sustainable park operations. The NPS adopted an Ocean
Park Stewardship Action Plan in 2006 to guide actions to reduce ocean-
related climate change impacts. Finally, NPS formed a service-wide
Climate Change Response Steering Committee to foster communications,
provide recommendations, and serve as an advisory body to NPS
leadership.
Successful approaches to mitigating climate change impacts require
the very best science, not only in physical and biological disciplines,
but also in social, and cultural sciences. Since 1999, the Cooperative
Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Network has provided the NPS with a
mechanism to collaborate with leading research institutions, including
universities, NGO's and State and federal partners to provide the
necessary science for sustainable adaptive management of NPS resources.
Since 1999, 17 CESUs have been established covering all regions of the
country, with a total of 250 partners including 13 federal agencies.
The program has been highly successful in funding cutting edge
collaborative research and providing technical assistance and capacity
building to the NPS, as well as State and local agencies and other
federal partners.
Looking to the Future--Mitigation, Adaptation, Communication
While efforts to date are significant, much work lies ahead. The
NPS must position itself to respond to the effects of climate change on
park resources and to prescribe management actions that are suitable
for parks. Building an effective response to the threats posed by
climate change will require action in three interrelated areas:
mitigation, adaptation, and communication. These efforts will
necessarily involve strong intra- and interagency cooperation and
leadership. We need to build on the collective knowledge that is
available to create new solutions for protecting resources and resource
values.
Mitigation-Leading by Example
Our collective carbon footprint must be understood to be managed
responsibly. In the area of mitigation, the NPS is leading by example
in reducing our carbon footprint and promoting sustainable operational
practices. The Climate Friendly Parks Program and the Energy SmartPARKS
Program are two of the key ways that NPS is mitigating GHGs through
these areas of emphasis:
Emissions Inventories: Parks quantify and track their emissions
and identify specific areas where reductions can be most
readily achieved. An online tool--the Climate Leadership in
Parks (CLIP) Tool created in 2005, allows parks a new and
simplified way to do this assessment and to guide them through
the process.
Climate Action Planning: Parks use the CLIP tool to identify
carbon reduction goals and actions to follow through on these
goals. Sixty parks are now in the process of completing these
plans.
Energy Conservation: Significant portions of GHG emissions in
parks come from transportation, building energy consumption,
and waste management. Mitigation solutions include sustainable
design and construction, adaptive ``green'' reuse of historic
structures, use of high-mileage and alternative-fuel vehicles,
solid waste reduction, and alternative transportation systems
that integrate all modes of travel within a park, including
land and water-based vehicles.
Renewable Energy: An increasing number of parks are generating
and using clean renewable energy such as photovoltaic systems
and geothermal heat exchange. The Energy SmartPARKS program is
a partnership with the Department of Energy that is focusing on
generating renewable energy and showcasing sustainable energy
practices in parks. Currently, NPS-wide, 3.8% of energy in
parks comes from renewable sources.
Regions are also moving forward with their own climate change
initiatives. For example, the Pacific West Region (PWR) of the NPS has
a very ambitious Climate Change Leadership Initiative that promotes
Climate Friendly Parks. The overall objective is to support Executive
Order 13423, Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and
Transportation Management, by setting GHG targets. The 58 parks in the
region have set a target of carbon neutral for park operations by 2016
and now generate over 4% of their energy from renewable sources. For
example, Joshua Tree National Park generates 40% of its energy from
renewable sources.
The NPS has made carbon management, energy conservation, and
renewable energy a major focus for our future. Accordingly, we have set
a goal to significantly exceed the federal requirements for reducing
total energy use in NPS operations and having some of our energy come
from renewables by 2016, the 100th year anniversary of the
establishment of the National Park System. Additionally, the NPS has
set a goal of having all parks identify their carbon footprint and have
climate action plans in place before 2016.
Safeguarding and Protecting Park Resources--Adaptation Planning
While mitigating the cause of climate change is essential,
scientific evidence demonstrates that even if we stopped emitting
greenhouse gases today, our past actions have already committed the
planet to some degree of change. Because of processes in the atmosphere
and oceans, it will take carbon dioxide and temperature on the order of
centuries to stabilize once GHG emissions are under control. Other
responses, such as sea level rise, can take millennia. We have to start
planning for adaptation options now--while we simultaneously work to
stabilize emissions.
For adaptation planning and implementation, our highest priority is
to support ecosystem integrity and the resilience of species and
communities to respond to changing conditions. As climate change causes
shifts in weather, we will see changes in water availability, fire, and
community structure and composition. Park vegetation and wildlife will
need to adapt to these new regimes or have the ability to migrate. By
building resilience and reducing other ecosystem stressors, the NPS
will help to reduce the extent of some of the most deleterious impacts
on park resources from climate change. For example, the NPS needs to be
aggressive in its actions to prevent the intrusion of invasive species,
eradicate where feasible, and control the spread when prevention and
eradication efforts fail. The NPS also will undertake measures to
restore natural ecosystems, making them healthier and more resilient to
the effects of climate change. Examples include our on-going efforts to
restore major ecosystems such as the Everglades, and the establishment
of marine reserves in units of the National Park System.
A critical component for adaptation planning and implementation
involves building our science information and ecosystem monitoring
capacity for sound decision-making by park managers. National park
units represent a wide range of ecosystems scattered across the nation,
embracing a broad spectrum of diverse and natural environments of North
America. Parks present a tremendous opportunity to observe the effects
of climate change on resource conditions that scientists and managers
have documented over decades. Begun almost nine years ago, the NPS
Natural Resources Challenge Initiative has funded parks across the
nation to conduct inventories and initiate vital signs monitoring of
natural resources under the NPS's jurisdiction.
The combination of these sources of information, long-term legacy
monitoring data, and new inventories has provided timely examples of
the possible effects of climate change now visible in parks. The NPS
Inventorying and Monitoring (I&M) Program's primary goal is to collect,
organize, and make available natural resource data. This program
includes 32 networks serving more than 270 parks. The Vital Signs
Program, which is part of the I&M Program, is strategically positioned
to help parks acquire the information they need to make informed
decisions and to employ adaptive management so that we can be flexible
in the face of change. In addition, NPS has also been funding baseline
documentation, including condition assessments of its cultural
resources and ethnographic studies that include data on natural
resources utilized and monitored by native groups. This data provides
critical information for evaluating the potential and real impacts of
climate change on cultural resources. Information from these programs
also informs state policymakers and assists scientists in looking at
regional and national trends.
Planning for climate change presents a major challenge for park
superintendents, their staff, and NPS programs. Resource management
decisions must be based on future expectations. However, in an era of
climate change, the future will be characterized by highly
consequential and unprecedented changes that cannot be predicted with
as much accuracy and precision as we would like. Consequently, the NPS
is utilizing a scenario planning approach that uses the best available
science to explore a range of plausible ``multiple working futures''
and consider appropriate actions within them. Currently the NPS and
USGS are working on a scenario planning workshop that will be held the
end of this month to look at case studies at Assateague Island National
Seashore and Wind Cave National Park. Adaptation also involves
rethinking infrastructure and preparing people for those changes that
are inevitable. To respond to climate change, park infrastructure may
need to be adapted to better perform or maintain functionality. This
also includes rethinking park planning issues such as zoning and the
design or location of buildings and roads. Scenario planning is being
specifically designed to help managers identify policies and actions
that will be most effective across a range of potential futures and to
promote tactical adaptation responses that are compatible with the NPS
mission.
Joshua Tree served as a case study for developing climate change
scenarios through a workshop held at the park in November 2007. Some of
the issues that were common across all scenarios were the loss of
Mojave Desert habitat in the park due to warming and increased invasion
by non-native grasses, which in turn is likely to bring more frequent
and larger fires to the park. As the park begins its general management
plan this year, these scenarios--forecasts of potential landscapes of
the future--will help guide that park in identifying appropriate
management actions for the future.
The NPS has made scenario and adaptation planning a major goal for
the next ten years to ensure parks are prepared for building resilience
into ecosystems and ensuring future visitor facilities are sited in
appropriate locations.
Parks Serve as Models of Sustainability and Places to Communicate
Climate Change Information
There is a great need at this time for messages that communicate
the complexities of climate change and the actions that can be taken.
With 275 million visitors annually, the parks can serve as models of
sustainability and platforms to effectively communicate information
about climate change. Parks can thus be the catalyst for visitors to do
their part for climate friendly parks. The NPS's interpretive and
education programs strive to connect people to the parks, with
opportunities for all visitors to form their own intellectual,
emotional, and physical connections to the meanings and values found in
the parks' stories. Effective interpretive and educational programs
encourage the development of a personal stewardship ethic and broaden
public support for preserving and protecting park resources so that
they may be enjoyed by present and future generations. The public has
come to expect high-quality and up-to-date resource information when
they visit parks.
The NPS is ideally positioned to raise awareness on climate change
and provide information about solutions that are being implemented
across the NPS and the Department. A number of efforts are underway to
tell the story about climate change and impacts to national parks.
These efforts include a monthly web-based seminar series featuring
climate change experts on science, communication, and management topics
and interpretive training using a decision-tree for developing
knowledge around aspects of climate change. The information will be
used to frame interpretive programs and answer visitor questions. The
NPS has developed a ``Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands Toolkit''
(in conjunction with other federal agencies) to be used by interpreters
in parks, zoos, aquariums, and science centers and by outdoor and
classroom educators across the country. In addition, summaries of
climate change knowledge for specific bioregions--a series of 11
bioregional documents--are being created in partnership with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service that summarize the current state of knowledge
about climate change and impacts to protected areas, with a focus on
national parks and refuges.
Looking forward, the NPS has a goal of every NPS park having
climate change information available through brochures, wayside
exhibits, interpretive programs and handouts, and park websites. The
Climate Friendly Parks Program has encouraged this and currently, there
are many examples such as Point Reyes National Seashore, Glacier
National Park, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Everglades National
Park, Dry Tortugas National Park, and Kenai Fjords National Park where
climate change information is readily available to the public. The NPS
is currently developing and supporting a new and exciting ``Visitor--Do
Your Part Program'' which will have visitors voluntarily measure and
reduce their carbon footprint.
The NPS may also utilize the national preservation programs, such
as Preservation Assistance and the National Center for Preservation
Technology, to develop and disseminate information on sustainability,
historic preservation, guidance for adaptive reuse of historic
buildings and addition of renewable energy sources into historic areas.
Other Considerations
In the future, collaboration with gateway communities, private
partners and state, local and federal agencies will be a key element to
successful mitigation, adaptation, and communication measures. Much of
our carbon footprint results from visitor services and movement in and
around parks. Thus, our ability to mitigate GHGs is uniquely tied to
our gateway communities and the transportation decisions we make. The
NPS will need to complement natural mechanisms that mitigate and adapt
to climate change through strategic approaches including: ensuring
wildlife and stream corridors are established to enable wildlife to
migrate if necessary; promoting and protecting healthy reefs, mangroves
and coastal wetlands that can minimize damage to coastal communities;
and protecting and restoring forests that can reduce soil erosion and
mudslides brought on by changing weather patterns and catastrophic
events.
At present, the Vital Signs Monitoring Program is well-established
as a key source and supplier of reliable, organized, and retrievable
information about parks. Climate change monitoring efforts by other DOI
bureaus, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, will also be a valuable
tool in understanding climate change effects on NPS landscapes. By
building on the successful network approach of these programs, the NPS
will likely gain additional capability to collect, analyze, and report
data on the condition of key natural and cultural resources in parks
and how they are changing or may change as a result of climate change.
Coastal and riverine parks are extremely vulnerable to climate
change impacts, especially sea level rise and storm surges, and these
are high priority areas for developing and implementing adaptation
actions. For example, shallow estuaries are significant for the long-
term production and health of many commercial species of fish,
including salmon and steelhead trout. The survival of these natural
resources are also critical to maintaining viable cultures that depend
on them such as the salmon and shellfish critical to Northwest tribes
and the reefs that support Pacific Island cultures. These important
habitats could dramatically change as sea level continues to rise. The
impacts of rising sea level also reach surprisingly far inland. The
Hudson River, for example, is tidal more than 100 miles inland, at
Albany, New York. Implementation of adaptation plans will be critical
to ensure facilities and coastal systems such as estuaries and tidal
rivers continue to function.
Conclusion
Our national park units are environmental baselines to track
change, and they stand as some of the last vestiges where ecological
components function naturally. To succeed in its mission in the face of
climate change, the DOI and NPS must lead by example in minimizing our
carbon footprint and promoting sustainable operational practices. We
must take responsibility for understanding how climate change will
impact the national parks and take appropriate steps to protect these
national treasures. An unprecedented level of collaboration and
cooperation with other agencies and partners will be required to
acquire needed scientific information, protect resources, and
effectively expand the teaching of the benefits and necessity of
natural and cultural resource conservation across the nation and the
world.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. I will be
pleased to answer any questions you and other members of the
subcommittee might have.
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______
Mr. Grijalva. One of the questions that comes to mind is
should the National Park Service have set renewable energy
goals as part of that effort in sustainability, and how to
downsize the agency's carbon footprint. Should there be a goal?
Mr. Jarvis. Yes, sir, I do believe that goals are essential
to achieving this. We have already in the Pacific West begun to
research whether or not we can be carbon neutral by 2016. We
are already at about four percent in terms of our use of
renewables. And the rest of the Service is about 3.8 percent. I
think measurable goals for reducing our footprint would be very
good.
Mr. Grijalva. And the NPS 2006 management policies, they
say very little about the subject that we're talking about
today, very little about climate change, adaptation,
sustainability, some of the issues that you mentioned in your
testimony. Do you believe that document needs to be updated to
the issues that we're dealing with now?
Mr. Jarvis. Sir, I think actually no. I think that the
management policies provide at the moment an excellent
framework upon which to address this. I think the way I would
suggest that it might be addressed from a policy standpoint
would be a director's order which tiers off of management
policies and can be very specific to the actions required under
climate change.
We are not yet prepared, I would suggest, to address in
management policies concerns about the specific changes to
natural resources from climate change. We have a foundation
that the national parks--the natural areas of our National Park
System--be managed, quote, unquote, to be natural. That we know
is changing, but we are not yet, let's say, sophisticated
enough to understand what the new model will be.
I served on a panel at a science conference just a few
months ago on this particular issue. And we are looking for
what will be the new model in terms of ecosystem, ecological
integrity, while we address climate change.
So, my suggestion at this time would be that we address it
through a director's order as well.
Mr. Grijalva. And a director's order would be more
flexible?
Mr. Jarvis. I think it would, sir. What it provides is that
it can be revised more easily than management policies at
this--as we address this, I think we're going to need some
flexibility.
Mr. Grijalva. OK.
NPS, the public lands, the Park Service's role in cap and
trade, how do you see that role?
Mr. Jarvis. I think that there is a role for the National
Park System in a carbon market. We are beginning to research
how that would work. We do restoration. For instance, in
Redwood National Park, an area that we--I was brought into the
National Park System after most of the large redwood trees had
been logged. We are in active restoration there, and those
trees will obviously sequester carbon. And understanding how we
could market that in a carbon market would be important.
We do restoration here in the desert. We do restoration
work in the islands. And all of those, I think, would be ideal
to play on a carbon market.
Mr. Grijalva. Again, one of the advantages of having a
closed ecosystem over dealing with an unlimited number of
owners is that it's a tremendous advantage in the strategy that
one puts in place. How do you envision multiple boundaries and
the need for adaptation, the restoration process to be
initiated when we're dealing with something other than a closed
ecosystem, when we're dealing with something other than one or
two participating owners, when we're dealing with
multiboundaries, be they public, be they private?
Mr. Jarvis. I think that climate change may be the unifying
principle that brings us together to begin to really address at
a landscape scale the changes that we are seeing. As you well
know, this country was divided up into a variety of Federal,
state, and private land ownerships, and has resulted in a
checkerboard landscape. In order for us to retain long-term
ecological sustainability and at the same time develop
renewables and other energy sources and to move it across the
country in corridors, we really are going to have to begin
discussing this at a landscape scale, at an ecosystem scale.
And there are some models in this country where we've done
that. And there are some models in Canada where they have done
that as well, where private, public land managers come together
and say, these are the most important ecological corridors for,
let's say, here in the desert.
The desert is a perfect example of that where we are
addressing right now the planning for large deployment of solar
energy in the desert and thinking about how do you connect and
provide for the mule deer and the desert bighorn and the desert
tortoise and other species in the desert while providing solar
development and recreation and all of that.
So, connectivity is the key. And it doesn't necessarily
mean it all has to be National Park Service or all wilderness.
It's just that it needs to be managed in such a manner that
ecological integrity is maintained and connectivity is
maintained as well.
Mr. Grijalva. So, the urgency becomes the unifier.
Mr. Jarvis. That's the way I see it, sir.
Mr. Grijalva. Tell me a little more about climate change
and the threat to cultural resources on our National Park
System.
Mr. Jarvis. I'll start first with our coastal areas. The
coasts of this country have been occupied for tens of thousands
of years, obviously because of their productivity and they're
great places to live. And as a result there are archeological
sites all along the Pacific Coast and the Atlantic Coast, in
the Pacific Islands. And predicted sea level rise of a meter or
more could or will inundate many of these archeological sites,
former home sites, and in some cases sites that are still
occupied with Native American reservations such as along the
Olympic Peninsula.
It has caused us in the National Park Service to begin to
shift our priorities in terms of inventory and monitoring of
those sites, if they are to be inundated by a sea level rise or
storm surge. Or like in the case of in the Northwest where
we're getting changes in storm regimes where much more flooding
in the falls that can wipe out these big alluvial fans where,
again, there are archeological sites, we are shifting our
priorities to inventory these sites before we lose them.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
Mrs. Napolitano, questions?
Mrs. Napolitano. Where do I start?
I have great interest in all the work that you're doing and
what you're reporting. And I think one of the first questions
I'd like to ask--because I know this was an issue with us in
the Bureau of Reclamation, is the amount of funding of your
staffing levels. What is it going to take to be able to do a
job that you need to do? That's one question.
If you want to address that, I have a whole bunch of
others.
Mr. Jarvis. Well, I always like that question. And the
bottom line is, first of all, the Congress in over the last ten
years has frankly been very good to the National Park Service
in investing in the national resources challenge. About 80
million dollars was invested over about eight years of
recurring funding that allowed us to build a network of vital
signs, and cooperative ecosystem study units of the
universities across the country. We have one here in the
University of California. And those have really been the
bedrock of monitoring of our park resources. And we are--so we
are better prepared today from that kind of investment than we
would have been if that investment had not occurred.
Now we're sort of moving to the next phase of this. And
certainly an investment I would suggest in two areas, one is to
build our research capacity to really begin to understand the
changes that we are seeing. We have sort of a baseline of
monitoring, but we need to also do a significant amount of
research as these--as these systems really change much more
rapidly than we had originally expected.
And the second piece is the education side, that frankly
our education side of our organization has gone into decline
over recent years and our reinvestment in our staff that do
frontline interpretation, education, exhibits, brochures, web,
all of that new technology that will allow us to get this
information out. Those were two areas.
Mrs. Napolitano. And I'm assuming that you do not have the
access to a lot of that technology.
Mr. Jarvis. That's correct, we do not.
Mrs. Napolitano. And just as an aside, I was in Puerto Rico
during the days of Anibal Acevedo Vila, being a resident
commissioner. And we visited the reserve. And some of the Park
Service people there advised us that they were very shorthanded
in being able to maintain that park. And that's one of the most
beautiful places I've seen.
How closely does the Park Service work with the USGS, with
the Bureau of Reclamation, with the Army Corps of Engineers?
And the reason I'm asking is, given my area of water in the
rivers, the dams, the canals, I worked heavily with all three
of them, mostly the first two, USGS and Bureau of Reclamation,
but somehow we haven't built the nexus to be able to determine
what your role, the Park Service, is with the role of
conservation, of watershed management, of all those other
things that can be part of what you're talking about.
Mr. Jarvis. That's a great question. And you're absolutely
right. Those are sister agencies within the Department of the
Interior, except for Army Corps of Engineers, but Bureau of
Reclamation and USGS are sister agencies to the National Park
System.
And it is very clear to me in discussions with the new
secretary, Secretary Salazar, and his staff, that the
expectation is that our bureaus will be working together much
more closely than in the past.
I think it has been in some ways--I mean, each of these
agencies have somewhat in some cases competing mandates. And
the expectation of the new secretary is that we will get
together, particularly on climate change and water demands.
I mean, as you well know, Congresswoman, the challenges we
are having here in California from drought and water needs,
water availability, water quality, all of those kinds of
things. And in many cases the National Park Service and the BLM
and the U.S. Forest Service are at the headwaters in terms of
these sites. In some cases there are entitlements. And we play
a very vital role in protecting that watershed as to serve the
downstream needs. And we are really working together in a much
more robust way.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, that really helps the quality of
water.
Mr. Jarvis. Yes, it does.
Mrs. Napolitano. Which brings me to a point of recycling.
How much recycling of any of its water does the Park Service
do?
Mr. Jarvis. It's again--in many cases it's the individual
initiative of a local superintendent has created some system to
provide that. But there has not been a holistic approach to
this at the National Park Service.
Mrs. Napolitano. Why not?
Mr. Jarvis. Because there hasn't been, as you've indicated,
Chairman, sort of direction from the top that the National Park
Service should be an environmental leader.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, I guess I push that because we need
to start looking at conservation storage, recycling it. And as
you talk about education, I hope that as you receive some
assistance in funding for education of the public and the
visitors that you incorporate water conservation into that.
Mr. Jarvis. Absolutely.
Mrs. Napolitano. That is key.
How about the tribal issues? Are they part and parcel of
what the Park Service is doing? Many tribal lands are adjoining
park units, and when you're talking about establishing--what
would I say--corridors of energy that traverse public, private,
and tribal lands, that's going to be a big issue in being able
to resolve without impacting the wildlife in those areas.
Mr. Jarvis. Absolutely. And this has been certainly one of
my personal interests over my 30 years in the National Park
Service, is to reach out to affiliated tribes. In many cases
the tribes have--our national park units were their traditional
hunting grounds or they are adjacent to reservations or in some
cases the reservations are actually inside units of the
National Park System. And to maintain an open and robust
relationship requires individual personal attention from the
park superintendents. And I encourage all of my
superintendents--I did it as a superintendent as well--to sit
down and discuss these issues. Because they too, tribes, have a
very strong vested interest in wildlife corridors, in energy
development, in maintaining their lifeways, all of those
things, cultural resources in particular that are threatened by
this. And I think it's going to require us to work very, very
closely with tribes as we address this.
Mrs. Napolitano. And is the Park Service looking at the
possibility of adding areas adjacent to the parks, the national
parks, for purposes of preservation?
Mr. Jarvis. In some cases I believe so. You know, there is
a process for adding units, for adding significant lands. And
it comes by Congress authorizing the study of additional units
and additional park lands. Our new secretary, Secretary
Salazar, has indicated that he has an interest in expanding the
National Park System for a variety of reasons to reflect all of
the American stories but as well to preserve additional
habitat.
Mrs. Napolitano. I'm glad to hear that because if not,
we'll ask his brother to bend his ear. His brother serves in
our caucus, and we are very much proud of the work he's doing.
You indicated you're behind in the strategy and you're
trying to set up the model that you just attended a conference
where they're looking at being able to bring it all together.
How long do you think that's going to take? And if you were the
director, if you were given the authority by Congress by the--
whether it's by the secretary's mandate or legislation, what
would be the scenario that you think would be in place to be
able to progress more than we have in the last decade or so?
Mr. Jarvis. Well, in 2016 will be the centennial, the
hundredth birthday of the National Park System. And I think
2016 provides an extraordinary opportunity and target point for
us as an agency and, frankly, for the country.
If you look at the National Park System in aggregate, we--
as Wallace Stegner said, we are America at its best. We are, as
in Ken Burns' film that's coming out this fall, America's best
idea.
Climate change is going to be a challenge to all of us. And
the National Park Service can play a significant leadership
role in this, first setting very specific goals to reduce our
carbon footprint by 2016 so that we can really demonstrate to
the American public that this institution is a leader.
And I can give you a perfect example here in California, At
Lassen Volcanic National Park we've built a brand new visitor
center up there that is certified under the Green Building
Council as Lead Platinum, which is the highest level that you
can get. So when you enter that building, you can pick up a
brochure on volcano, and you can pick up a brochure on the in-
floor heating system that is driven by geothermal. So, you
really get both stories.
And I think that setting specific goals for the National
Park Service to be an environmental leader in this case, to set
up a way of reporting to the American public on the condition
of these park resources, the ecological integrity as well that
has been threatened, and to inspire the American public to take
action themselves in terms of energy conservation, water
conservation, all of those things to what they learn within our
national parks, I would set all of those as very specific goals
leading up to 2016.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Hopefully part of that will be the
solar panel, especially in areas where there's a lot of sun.
Chair, I have other questions, but I think I'll submit them
in writing.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mrs. Napolitano.
If I can, Mr. Jarvis, let me follow up on a question that
Mrs. Napolitano asked.
One of our later witnesses is going to suggest that we
should also consider adding areas to the National Park System
that are damaged but restorable. Any thoughts on that concept?
Mr. Jarvis. The National Park Service has, I believe, one
of the best restoration programs in the country. We have
inherited damaged landscapes in the past. Shenandoah National
Park in the East was significant--was homesteaded. It was
significantly cut-over forest. And as I mentioned, Redwood
National Park as well. Restoration is an absolute key. And
it's--actually I think it's an exportable activity as well, as
there are damaged landscapes around the world that we can
contribute to as well. I think it's a very valid idea.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Let me thank you, Mr. Jarvis. I
think that was--as the development of the legislation goes
forward, I think you made some good points that need to be
considered, in response to a question about education, how
vital that needs to be as part of the overall strategy to deal
with the climate change and the public lands, and the fact that
we touch so many people, so many visitors, and how powerful too
that could be.
Research and development is another point you made, and
human resource development as well. And so thank you very much
for your testimony, and I appreciate your suggestions very
much. Thank you.
Mr. Jarvis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grijalva. Call the next panel of witnesses. If the next
panel would join us, please. Thank you.
Let me begin. Mr. John Harja, Co-Chair Western Governors'
Association Wildlife Corridors Initiative Steering Committee,
welcome. And we look forward to your comments.
STATEMENT OF JOHN HARJA, CO-CHAIR, WESTERN GOVERNORS'
ASSOCIATION WILDLIFE CORRIDORS INITIATIVE STEERING COMMITTEE,
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
Mr. Harja. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to
come, Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Napolitano.
My name is John Harja. I am Public Lands Policy Coordinator
for Governor Jon Huntsman of Utah. And as a coincidence,
Governor Huntsman is the Chair of the Western Governors'
Association this year.
Last summer at their annual meeting, the Governors
established a working group called the Western Governors'
Wildlife Council. The reason for this is the Governors
recognized that wildlife issues were important to the West as a
whole.
The Western Governors' Association is composed of the 19
Western states. And the board of directors are the Governors.
So, it's an organization that directly reports to the Governors
and face these regional issues. They don't always agree, of
course. And if not, then that issue is left with Governors to
deal with on their own. So when they do agree on an issue, it's
very important. And this is one of the issues they agreed on,
that wildlife crucial habitat and wildlife corridors,
connectivity of wildlife, was something that as a region we
should focus on.
And by connectivity, they didn't necessarily mean just
movement of big game. They meant connectivity in terms of
genetics and the flow of plants and all that sort of thing. So,
it is an important issue that they decided to move forward
with.
They recognized, as we stated, that intact and functioning
ecosystems, resilience as the previous speaker mentioned, are
important, and asked a group to start looking at it. That group
convened last summer. And in one of those be-careful-what-you-
ask-for tasks, I was elected chair. So, that's why I'm here
today. In meeting the council has focused on a couple of
issues. There have been a couple of important examples of
corridors that we're looking at, protection of corridors. The
first wasn't the Western Governors' Association that caused it
to happen, it was a partnership of lots of groups. It's a
corridor south of Grand Teton National Park, the Path of the
Pronghorn, was established by the Forest Service and the BLM
last summer. And that's the kind of example of movement that we
were mentioning.
I want to mention that not only because it's there now, but
it was true partnership. And that's one of the things that the
Governors understand, that it's going to take Federal lands and
state lands and private lands to accomplish many of these
goals.
But in meeting we've discovered a number of things. A lot
of information is simply not there. The Western Governors'
Association is also, at the same time, working on a Western
Renewable Energy Zone Process. And they're trying to establish
areas where wind, geothermal, solar are appropriate--or best
sited--let me put it that way. And wildlife is one of the
issues. Another of course is transmission corridors and power
lines and all of that. But wildlife is very important.
In examining our group was asked to provide them
information on wildlife corridors and crucial habitats, and
discovered much information is simply not yet there. And what
information is there is not necessarily designed for this
purpose. For example, in Arizona a lot of antelope information
simply doesn't exist. So, how to proceed?
Crucial habit are defined differently in different states.
My state, Utah, has one definition. Right across the border,
Wyoming, might have a different definition. Neither is wrong,
they're just established for different purposes. And so trying
to coordinate across state boundaries is a key point for us.
We do need a credible set of tools. We need things like
GIS. We do need to understand how to map them. But in mapping
you have to understand the basis of the information. It has to
be accurate.
And then it comes down to funds. A lot of states, of
course, are suffering just now. There's a need for funding.
There's a need for GIS funding. There's a need for essentially
more information. Most of the states get their wildlife funding
through sale of permits for hunting. That's sufficient for what
we're doing, but a lot of the states are maxed out. It's hard
to proceed any further. And so some sort of coordinated effort
is needed.
We're pleased to partner with most of these groups that are
sitting next to me and behind me as partnering their efforts
and their funding. And that's an important way to proceed.
We are looking primarily at what we call a Decision Support
System. And that is a method of gathering information, making
it available to the public on the web, for example, to anybody
who needs it, and then making it available to decision makers,
whether those decision makers are local government, state
government folks, or the Federal agencies. Just providing it to
them, and then asking that they use it.
In Utah in the last few years we have been taking advantage
of cooperating agency status a great deal. That's one of my
primary functions with Governor Huntsman. This is a way to get
into the process, bring that kind of information to the Federal
agencies that work on environmental impact statements and ask
them to consider it. That's one way. There are many others. The
State of Wyoming has got a GIS system on their web that has all
of the information that they have to date. And they're asking
agencies to look at it. So, there are many ways to approach it.
The effects of climate change are part of our effort.
Corridors may change as the climate adjusts, as things get
warmer and plants move north or up. So, that's a difficult one,
though, for the agencies. There isn't a lot of knowledge yet.
Some of their predicted models vary in their certainty. They're
very complex. So, just trying to get a handle on that is going
to be a major challenge in and of itself.
But the state agency--I want to emphasize this--the state
agencies are willing to accept all those challenges. They take
very seriously their responsibilities as the public trust for
natural resources. Outside the Endangered Species Act, for
example, the states are the managers of habitat and wildlife.
They don't own the habitat, but they are the managers of the
wildlife issues. They take that seriously and they see it as an
opportunity to improve things and protect corridors that are
essential to the way of life in the West for wildlife.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I pass the opportunity along.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harja follows:]
Statement of John Harja, Director, Public Lands Policy Coordination,
Office of Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr., Speaking on behalf of the
Western Governors' Wildlife Council
Chairman Grijalva, Ranking Member Bishop and members of the
Committee, my name is John Harja. I am the Director of Public Lands
Policy Coordination in the Office of Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
I also serve as Chair of the Western Governors' Wildlife Council, an
organization formed by the Western Governors' Association. The WGA
addresses important policy and governance issues in the West, advances
the role of the Western states in the federal system, and strengthens
the social and economic fabric of the region. Thank you for the
invitation to testify today on behalf of WGA concerning the Wildlife
Corridors Initiative and the work of the Western Governors' Wildlife
Council 1.
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Background
In February 2007, the Western Governors' Association unanimously
approved policy resolution 07-01, Protecting Wildlife Migration
Corridors and Crucial Wildlife Habitat in the West 2. This
resolution asked the Western states, in partnership with important
stakeholders, to identify key wildlife corridors and crucial wildlife
habitats in the West and make recommendations on needed policy options
and tools for preserving those landscapes. WGA did this through the
Wildlife Corridors Initiative, a multi-state, collaborative effort to
assess current data for wildlife corridors and crucial habitat in the
19 Western states. In June 2008, the governors adopted the report
3, Wildlife Corridors Initiative, which included
recommendations on data needs and conservation tools developed through
a stakeholder-based process.
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01.pdf
\3\ http://www.westgov.org/wga/publicat/wildlife08.pdf
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The Governors acknowledged that large, intact and functioning
ecosystems, healthy fish and wildlife populations, and public access to
natural landscapes contribute to the West's quality of life and
economic well-being. Unfortunately, human activity occurring in
important wildlife corridors and crucial wildlife habitats can affect
the integrity of these ecosystems around the nation and in the Western
States.
Western Governors' Wildlife Council
In June 2008 the Western Governors established the Western
Governors' Wildlife Council to implement recommendations in the report.
The primary task is to identify key wildlife corridors and crucial
wildlife habitats in the West, and to coordinate implementation of
needed policy options and tools for preserving those landscapes.
The Council is generally tasked to address the following needs
identified in the development of the report:
Much information is missing, or more detailed information
is desirable, concerning wildlife corridors and crucial habitats.
Crucial habitat and wildlife corridors are defined
differently, and used for different purposes, in the various states.
These issues need to be examined and reconciled, to meet the common
goal of aiding wildlife conservation efforts
States must have a credible set of tools and models for
incorporating wildlife values into planning and decision-making
processes.
There must be coordination across all levels of
government for conservation of wildlife corridors and crucial habitat.
States require long-term, sustained funding for wildlife
conservation objectives that support current and future decision-making
in a dynamic landscape. State wildlife agencies are funded primarily by
revenues from fishing and hunting, federal distributions and lottery
dollars; these revenues limit their capacity to engage actively in
conserving wildlife habitat and corridors. Several existing programs
provide a foundation of information that can be built upon with a
modest infusion of funds.
A key product of the Western Governors' Wildlife Council is the
development of a spatially explicit Decisions Support System (DSS) that
each state can use to make more informed decisions on protecting
wildlife corridors and crucial habitats. This tool will build upon
existing information and fill data gaps. The DSS will include GIS
mapping data to bring consistency in the way corridors are mapped and
crucial habitats identified across the West. It will also increase the
integration of wildlife data into decision processes early on, by
fostering more proactive planning and promoting research on adaptive
resource management.
The DSS will be dynamic. There will be regular updates of data as
landscapes and wildlife populations change as a result of the influence
of population growth, energy development and climate change. Through
this effort the DSS will support research to understand climate change
impacts on wildlife corridors and crucial habitats and climate-change
related adaptation.
For the last six months the Western Governors' Wildlife Council has
been working on a pilot project to collect available wildlife data from
relevant states, federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations to
apply crucial habitat information to the identification of developable
renewable energy zones within WGA's Western Renewable Energy Zones
initiative. Plans are also underway within the Western Governors'
Wildlife Council to establish two standing committees to move forward
on developing an integrated fish and wildlife DSS within each state and
to achieve a coordinated understanding of wildlife corridors and
connectivity issues.
Federal Partnerships
The WGA, through the Western Governors' Wildlife Council, is poised
to coordinate efforts between the 16 state members of the Council to
develop DSSs, while integrating federal partners and stakeholders into
these efforts. Integrated DSSs in each state in the West will include
all public lands, and consider current and future uses of adjoining
lands. Early and frequent coordination between state and federal land
managers and other agencies and stakeholders will create the likelihood
of positive results. Given the amount of public lands in the West, it
will be critical for states to partner with federal agencies in
developing DSSs to ensure data sharing and the ability for federal
agencies to utilize the information in their own decision-making
processes.
One wildlife corridor has already been designated on public lands
as a result of data sharing between states, federal agencies and
additional stakeholders. The Bridger-Teton National Forest amended its
Land and Resource Management Plan to identify a wildlife corridor,
known as the Path of the Pronghorn, and a management standard to ensure
that no new projects or activities impede the migration corridor. This
is one of the longest remaining land-based wildlife migrations in North
America, and it is the longest in the lower 48 United States. A portion
of this corridor also crosses Bureau of Land Management lands in
Wyoming. A recent revision of the Pinedale District Resource Management
Plan protected a portion of the pronghorn migration on their lands by
approving the designation of an Area of Critical Environmental Concern,
designated Trappers Point.
State Needs
Each state will require funding to coordinate the development of
their DSSs on a regional scale and fill data gaps within their state.
Many states have begun this process, but they are in different stages
of development. The Western Governors' Wildlife Council will soon be
developing a framework for a coordinated DSS that will give each state
the ability to create a scorecard, identifying their specific and
individual needs. A portion of that money will also be needed to help
states modify their wildlife management goals and plans as wildlife
respond to impacts from climate change. Resources directed toward the
federal agencies that would maximize their participation and support of
the Western Governors' Wildlife Council should also be considered.
The Effects of Climate Change
The Wildlife Corridors Initiative report provided recommendations
for identifying and maintaining wildlife corridors in the face of
climate change. These recommendations include:
Establish a Wildlife Adaptation Advisory Council among
state and federal agencies, academics, and science-based NGOs to
facilitate regional and state climate-impact assessments on the effects
of climate change upon wildlife and wildlife habitat.
Establish a regional climate change adaptation
information clearinghouse relevant to wildlife corridors and crucial
habitat.
Implement flexible approaches to addressing habitat
fragmentation on public lands and utilize incentives to encourage
voluntary protection and management of key crucial habitats and
wildlife corridors by private owners.
Recommend coordination among western states, tribes and
federal natural resource agencies in planning and implementing
adaptation activities.
Consider collaboration within hydrologic strategic
planning, hydrologic climate modeling, water storage capacity and state
invasive species strategies.
The Wildlife Corridors Initiative additionally suggests that the
Western Governors should consider supporting the establishment of new
revenue streams to support wildlife adaptation to climate change in any
relevant climate change legislation, such as carbon cap and trade or
carbon tax legislation that may be enacted by the U.S. Congress.
Conclusion
In closing, the WGWC is moving ahead quickly with establishing a
dynamic DSS in each state. Each DSS will be designed to coordinate the
collection of information concerning crucial habitat and wildlife
corridors, and design a process within each state which provides this
information to state, local and federal decision makers. Our effort is
to encourage early consideration of wildlife data in planning decisions
and to help assist decision-makers to better manage wildlife resources.
It is this last step which is vital. Wildlife and plant species live on
private, state and federal land, and any process to protect them must
involve partnerships. No one entity can accomplish the task alone. We
would appreciate any support this committee and Congress is able to
offer through funding or by encouraging federal agency participation in
this effort.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about the work WGA
and the Western Governors' Wildlife Council are doing to map wildlife
corridors and crucial habitat on public and private lands.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Ms. Rebecca Shaw, Director of Conservation
Science, The Nature Conservancy of California. Welcome and
thank you.
STATEMENT OF REBECCA SHAW, DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION SCIENCE,
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO,
CALIFORNIA
Ms. Shaw. Thank you very much, Chairman Grijalva and
Congresswoman Napolitano, for the opportunity to offer
testimony regarding the impacts of climate change on the
National Parks, and the opportunities that exist for
implementing adaptation strategies to protect these resources.
My name is Rebecca Shaw. I work for The Nature Conservancy.
I oversee The Nature Conservancy's conservation in California.
And I conduct research on the climate change impacts and
adaptation strategies to develop scientific methods and
information for use in the field by managers and by policy
makers. I'm here today to talk to you about the adaptation of
our national lands and waters, especially those in our national
parks in the face of a rapidly changing climate.
Just to be clear, adaptation refers to human actions to
maintain important human and natural systems in the face of
change. But adapting nature to the impacts of climate change
will help ensure the health of our valuable resources in our
national parks as well as the forests and waters on people--
upon which people depend.
In many parts of the world, including here in the
California desert, impacts of climate change can already be
seen and measured with just the observed rise in global mean
temperature of 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit. An explosion of studies
in the last five years has documented the observed climate
impacts on species distribution, wildfire frequency and
intensity.
With or without social interventions in curbing greenhouse
gas emissions, we are committed to impacts in the future. In
California in this century the average annual statewide
temperature is projected to rise anywhere between 6.8 and 10.4
degrees Fahrenheit under the greenhouse gas emissions
trajectory on which we now find ourselves. To put this into
context, San Francisco could have the climate of Los Angeles.
That means that there will be considerable impacts in the
desert as well as here at Joshua Tree National Park. Climate
change will result in increased rates of plant mortality,
including the charismatic Joshua Tree, which is the emblematic
symbol of this park. These changes will affect the viability of
the investments we have made in public lands in California and
the resources those investments were designed to protect.
While it is important to implement meaningful greenhouse
gas reductions, it's also important to come to terms with the
degree of the climate change to which we have already committed
ourselves, and to act on the funding, planning and
implementation to facilitate adaptation of our important
protects areas.
Current adaptation responses to climate change are focusing
heavily on defensive infrastructure, such as reinforcing
seawalls, relocating communities and roads, and building dams
and levies and channels to control flooding. Such
infrastructure responses will be necessary, but they will not
be sufficient to address the full scope of climate change
impacts. Done right and under the right conditions, adaptation
can protect us from climate change threats such as increased
fire, flooding, and pest outbreaks more cost-effectively than
by deploying additional infrastructure. And this is ecosystem-
based adaptation, what we term as ecosystem-based adaptation.
In practice, ecosystem-based adaptation includes strategies
such an insuring that natural lands remain intact, and not
fragmented, and connected to allow for plants, animals, and
people to adjust to environmental conditions. It also includes
the restoration of fragmented or degraded ecosystems. And it
can include the use of natural infrastructure such as wetlands,
flood plains, and mangrove trees to buffer settlements from
flood waters or storms.
The national parks, as you know, are not viable as islands.
And ecosystem-based adaptation strategies will be needed to
protect their resources in the future.
As the climate shifts and plants and animals no longer will
be able to survive in the current location, the ability to move
will be essential to the survival of all species.
One analysis of impacts of climate change here at Joshua
Tree show that the future range will be reduced and shifted
northward, and unfortunately the Joshua tree lacks the
sufficient dispersing capability to follow that shifting
climate. The Nature Conservancy is facing similar challenges
with our investments in natural resource protection. And like
the Federal government, we are working diligently to develop
information to support those solutions.
It is for this reason that The Nature Conservancy is
developing information tools such as the Climate Wizard, which
is referenced in my written testimony, and the Climate Stress
Index, that allow resource managers to interpret climate
impacts data for decision making. Using these tools and others,
we are working to determine where species will migrate and to
develop ecosystem-based adaptation strategies to facilitate
their movement.
This includes, of course, as others have mentioned,
establishing connectivity to future habitat and insuring
corridors are free of barriers to movement.
Here at Joshua Tree National Park such a strategy will
require coordination among Federal agencies like the National
Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, as well
partnerships with nonFederal entities including private
landowners.
And to say that these kinds of efforts aren't unique, they
would just be needed to be more prevalent in the future. An
excellent example of this is available right here in the
vicinity of the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat
Conservation Plan, which maintains links between Joshua Tree
National Park and other protected areas, even as urban
development moves forward.
Moving forward then, it would be important to carefully
explore what will be needed to implement adaptation strategies,
ecosystem-based adaptation strategies to protect these
resources on a scale that will be meaningful for protecting
natural and human communities.
I encourage you to consider the inclusion of the following
key elements in any policy context: There will need to be
significant funding and sustained funding to implement
ecosystem-based adaptation. But it will be cost-effective in
the long-run. But there is a need for a revenue stream.
I encourage the development of a national climate change
adaptation program with a nationally prioritized list of
ecosystem-based adaptation strategies to address climate change
impacts, guidelines for how they should be accomplished, and
guidance on whether infrastructure solutions are necessary and
appropriate.
I also encourage climate change adaptation partnerships to
facilitate the cooperation among all levels of government and
the private section, and the appropriate incentives to allow
this to happen.
I also encourage guidance on the avoidance of impacts
counter to adaptation goals. While Federal and state agencies
should ensure adaptive infrastructure avoids damage to natural
systems to the maximum extent practical, and should look for
opportunities to use restoration of natural systems as a way to
protect human communities.
And last, the national parks could serve as climate change
adaptation centers with key national parks identified to
develop the information and tools needed, design and pilot
adaptation approaches and strategies, monitor outcomes, and to
facilitate adaptation learning.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear today and
to offer testimony.
As the Subcommittee contemplates legislation for adaptation
of our valued national parks, the conservancy has very
practical solutions for advancing adaptation to climate change.
And on behalf of the conservancy, I would like to extend an
offer to work with the committee as you explore practical
solutions for assisting the Nation in adapting to our future
climate.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Shaw follows:]
Statement of M. Rebecca Shaw, Ph.D., Director of Conservation Programs,
The Nature Conservancy of California
I. Background on Dr. Rebecca Shaw
I am Rebecca Shaw, the Director of Conservation for the California
Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. It is my job to provide the
technical guidance and leadership necessary for the Conservancy to make
smart decisions regarding the conservation and management of nature.
Prior to taking a position at The Conservancy, I was a researcher at
the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford
University and pursuing a career in climate change science. At the
Conservancy, I have continued research on climate change impacts and
adaptation, developing scientific methods and information for use by
field managers of natural resources and policy makers that creates an
explicit link between climate science information and its users. I have
dedicated my scientific career to using rigorous, practical analysis
and synthesis of science data for management and use our lands and
waters. I am here today to talk explicitly about adapting our natural
lands and waters, especially those in our National Parks, to a rapidly
changing climate.
II. Background on The Nature Conservancy
For the past 50 years, the Conservancy has integrated science,
policy and on-the-ground conservation to protect more than 117 million
acres of land and 5,000 miles of river around the world. We work in all
50 states and 32 countries, and are supported by approximately one
million individual members. Our work also includes more than 100 marine
conservation projects in 21 countries and in 22 U.S. states. The
Conservancy owns and manages approximately 1,400 reserves throughout
the United States--the largest private system of nature sanctuaries in
the world. The Conservancy recognizes that successful conservation is
the underpinning of human health and prosperity and uses science and
its strategic application to protect biological diversity and meet
human needs. To achieve our goals we routinely partner with government
agencies, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and business
enterprises. However, climate change impacts on the Earth's lands and
waters are real and tangible, and we have found that protecting our
natural systems has become increasingly challenging.
III. Context for Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Change
In many parts of the world, including right here in Joshua Tree
National Park, impacts are already observable and measureable. Forests
from Canada to Brazil are more susceptible to pest outbreaks and
catastrophic fires. Species like polar bears in the Arctic are
struggling to survive as suitable habitat shrinks. As climate continues
to change, water supplies will be threatened as some regions experience
more flooding and others more drought. Agricultural productivity will
shift. Low-lying coastal communities may be inundated by sea-level
rise. In fact, with or without societal interventions, we are committed
to continued human-driven climatic change and additional impacts in the
future (Kerr 2004, 2005) and it is important to develop concrete
approaches for helping communities and ecosystems deal with the climate
change that is unavoidable.
Nature can play a powerful role the solutions. Adapting nature to
the impacts of climate change will help ensure the health of valuable
resources, such as forests and fisheries, upon which people depend for
their well-being and livelihoods. However, there is emerging evidence
that adaptive responses to climate change are focusing heavily on
defensive infrastructure, such as reinforcing seawalls, relocating
communities or roads, and building dams, levees, and channels to
control flooding. Such infrastructure responses will often be
necessary, but they will not be sufficient to address the full scope of
climate change impacts. Also needed are strategies to ensure that the
ecosystems that support biodiversity and that provide people with
water, food, and other natural resources and services continue to
function despite the changing conditions. Done right and under the
right conditions, we can also harness nature to protect us from climate
change threats, such as increased flooding, more cost-effectively than
by deploying additional infrastructure.
While the testimony provided today will focus on adaptation in
order to lessen climate change impacts, action to address the causes of
climate change is essential if adaptation efforts are to be effective.
To that end, implementation of policy that explicitly links three
concepts is essential to success adaptation success:
1. A strong cost-effective cap on emissions and a market-based
program compatible with other international efforts. Meaningful
emission reductions are needed to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations at a level that ensures the well-being of human
communities and ecosystems worldwide. The Conservancy supports caps
that would establish emissions reductions of 20% below 2005 levels by
2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050.
2. Reduction of emissions from forest and land-use practices
through a comprehensive framework including incorporation of verified
credits from these practices in a cap-and-trade program, and
3. Strong support for ecosystem-based adaptation programs designed
to protect human and natural communities from the impacts of climate
change.
III. Climate Change Impacts in California and at Joshua Tree National
Park
Our terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats, including the
already dry and hot California desert in which we find ourselves today,
face an uncertain climatic future. Climate change projections forecast
significant ecological and economic impacts as a result of rising
temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events.
Although climate has changed repeatedly over past millennia, for a
variety of reasons (Houghton et al. 2001), anticipated human-driven
changes are likely to be unusually fast and large. Many of the species
and ecosystems here are particularly vulnerable to future climatic
change because their current ranges are limited and their potential
ranges are bounded by the coast, mountains and other geographic
features (Snyder et al. 2003). California's unique climate, under which
its ecological systems evolved, is projected to change dramatically.
Mean annual temperatures in California have already increased by 1
degree Celsius (1.8+F) between 1950 and 2000. The contemporary climatic
changes have already had a demonstrable impact on California's natural
resources. Droughts have become more severe, especially in the southern
part of the state, and this trend is projected to continue over the
next 100 years (Christensen et al. 2007; Seager et al. 2007; Trenberth
et al. 2007). In addition, movement of species in response to climate
warming is already resulting in shifts of species ranges north and
upward along elevational gradients (Parmesan, 2006) and have begun to
explore the implications of these changes for the provisions of
ecosystem services (sensu Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).
Indeed, an explosion of studies in the last five years document
observed climate impacts on species distributions. In one such study in
Southern California's Santa Rosa Mountains, researchers documented
plants shifting upslope by 65 m over the 30 year period from 1970 to
2007 (Kelly and Goulden, 2008). The altitudinal shift is attributable
to increases in surface temperature and in the precipitation due to
climate change. In another, researchers discovered that 70% of
butterfly species studied advanced the date of first spring flights by
an average 24 days over the period from 1972 to 2002 (Forister and
Shapiro 2003).
In California this century, the average annual statewide
temperature is projected to rise 1.7-3.0+C (3.0-5.4+F) under low
emission scenarios and 3.8-5.8+C (6.8-10.4+F) under higher emissions
scenarios; the current trend is the higher than the high emissions
scenario (Hayhoe et al. 2004; Cayan et al. 2006, Rapauch 2007). The
projections for statewide annual average precipitation change varies in
both direction and magnitude from a decrease of 157 mm to an increase
of 38 mm (Hayhoe et al. 2004; Cayan et al. 2006), with significant
variation in projections among Global Circulation Models (GCMs) and
emissions scenarios (Metz et al. 2001; Salathe 2003; Wood et al. 2004).
The projections for the California deserts, including Joshua Tree
National Park, are even more severe, with the typical summer maximum
temperatures by the end of the century reaching levels that are hotter
than the most extreme year we have seen in the last 100 years. The
majority of climate models also predict these deserts will become even
more arid, losing an average of 1.6 inches of precious rain each year.
Additional stresses to species and ecological systems are also likely
to come from increased invasions from non-native species, more frequent
high-intensity fires, unforeseen interactions between species as the
climate shifts, and natural and non-natural barriers to wildlife
migration (Suttle et al. 2007). Under pressure from climate change and
the full array of stressors, these ecosystems, including the
distinctive species associated with these places, will necessarily
respond and change.
Indeed, here in the Mojave Desert at Joshua Tree National Park,
there will likely be increased rates of plant mortality, including the
charismatic Joshua Tree, which will accelerate rates of erosion, create
opportunities for exotic plant invasions and promote fire. The
increased frequency of fire will further reduce abundance of native
plants. The climate-driven dynamics of the fire cycle are likely to
become the single most important feature controlling future plant
distributions in these deserts. Thus it is likely that California's
desert species and ecosystems, and the direct value we derive from them
via ecosystem services (e.g., to sustain biodiversity, promote clean
water, and sequester carbon), will also be altered dramatically.
As we are now able to measure ecological signals for a temperature
increase of just 1.0+ C (1.8+F), the expected impacts on species and
ecosystems of the temperature expected by 2099 are sure to be dramatic
and we need to develop approaches for securing our past investment in
our federal, state and private protected areas through a comprehensive
adaptation strategy that takes into account the likely impacts of
climate change, analyzes the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to
those impacts and develops adaptation strategies for building
resilience into natural systems.
IV. Ecosystem-based Adaptation Approach--Strategies and Benefits
While a world of rapidly changing climate is not desirable, it is
now inevitable. To alter course of impact of climate change, it is
essential to implement meaningful greenhouse gas reduction targets; but
it is also important to come to terms with degree of climate change to
which we have committed ourselves, both through our past emissions and
through emissions that will occur between now and in the future. It is
therefore vital to act now to begin to/take steps to fund, plan and
implement strategies to protect our important protected areas and the
services they provide to our nation's people in the face of anticipated
changes in climate. These last strategies are commonly referred to as
ecosystem-based adaptation strategies.
In practice, ecosystem-based adaptation includes practices such as
ensuring that ecosystems remain intact and interconnected to allow for
biodiversity and people to adjust to changing environmental conditions.
It can also include restoration of fragmented or degraded ecosystems,
or simulation of missing ecosystem processes such as migration or
pollination. It can include the use of natural infrastructure such as
wetlands or fringing mangrove communities to buffer human settlements
from floodwaters or storms. These interventions are not without costs--
all will demand adaptation of management, governance and institutional
settings--but they are necessary to safeguard ecosystems and the
essential services that natural systems provide to people such as clean
water, clean air and recreations. Protecting, restoring, and managing
key ecosystems yields significant sustained benefits in a world of
climate change for both humans and nature. These benefits include cost-
effective protection against storms and flooding and reinforcing
mitigation efforts.
Ecosystem-based adaptation encompasses a range of strategies
whereby ecosystem management, restoration and uses are modified or
diversified to confer greater resilience of natural ecosystems,
production landscapes, human populations and livelihoods in the face of
accelerated climate change. Ecosystem-based strategies include, but are
not limited to:
Integrating climate change into local and regional plans
Protecting large areas with buffer zone, increase reserve
size and increase number of reserves
Increasing connectivity between reserves through design
of corridors, removal of barriers for dispersal, reforestation
Minimizing and mitigate synergistic threats including
invasive species, fragmentation, and fire
Practicing intensive management to secure populations
including relocating species
Improving interagency regional coordination
Providing private land stewardship incentives
Early lessons from existing ecosystem-based adaptation projects
suggest some principles for developing effective ecosystem-based
adaptation strategies:
Ecosystem-based adaptation should be based on robust
predictive modeling of climate, biodiversity and social/economic
responses to climate change.
Ecosystem-based adaptation strategies should include a
focus on minimizing other anthropogenic stresses that have degraded the
condition of critical ecosystems, as healthy ecosystems will be more
resilient to climate change.
Existing management practices and governance
infrastructure should be the basis for adaptation efforts, although
these may have to be substantially altered in order to achieve
management objectives.
The development of adaptation strategies and their
implementation should involve diverse stakeholders in government, the
private sector and civil society.
Ecosystem-based adaptation complements other climate change
responses in two ways. First, it helps to make ecosystems more
resistant and resilient in the face of climate change so that they can
continue to provide the full suite of services that nature provides.
Such strategies are especially important for sustaining natural
resources like water, timber and fisheries that people depend on for
their well-being and livelihoods. Second, ecosystem-based adaptation
protects and restores ecosystems that can provide cost-effective
protection against some of the threats that result from climate change.
For example, wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs, oyster reefs, and
beaches all provide shoreline protection from storms and flooding that
can reinforce and enhance engineered solutions while sustaining
biodiversity at the same time.
Protecting, restoring, and managing key ecosystems yields the
following significant sustained benefits in a world of climate change
for both humans and biodiversity:
Cost-effective protection against storms and flooding:
protecting and restoring ``green infrastructure'' like healthy riparian
corridors and wetlands could be a more cost-effective means for
protecting large coastal areas, and require less maintenance since they
are living systems
Maintenance of connectivity across temperature and
moisture gradients will allow plants and wildlife to adapt naturally to
some degree of climate change
Maintenance of essential ecosystem services, such as
water purification, will ensure continued availability and access to
natural resources so that communities can maintain and adapt
livelihoods to the conditions that are projected in a changing climate.
Reinforcement of mitigation efforts through, for example,
``working forest'' easements can sequester carbon by improving overall
forest health, and simultaneously sustain functioning ecosystems that
provide food, fiber and water resources on which people depend.
Consolidation and expansion of parks and other protected
areas in carbon-rich habitats can increase carbon storage, thereby
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and involve a wide range of people
in mitigation and adaptation efforts.
V. Effective Adaptation--Information and Tools
As we work to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is important that
the adaptation go beyond the systematic identification of potential
future impacts to produce a much more comprehensive analysis of
vulnerability and pathway for modifying that vulnerability through
implementable strategies. The goal of adaptation should be increasing
the long-term resilience of natural and managed systems by increasing
the adaptive capacity of the managing institutions. There are four
important features are necessary for such an adaptation approach:
1. Tools that identify the range of potential future climate
changes, the uncertainties associated with those ranges, the degree of
vulnerability of particular species or systems to the full range of
climatic change
2. An assessment the synergistic impacts of other factors that
might alter vulnerability to climatic changes (e.g., land use change,
fragmentation, pollution, proximity to other protected areas, etc.)
3. An assessment of the adaptive capacity for existing resource
management institutions to respond to and reduce vulnerability given
current goals and resources constraints; and
4. Development of an adaptive framework for reassessing goals and
policies that promotes cross-institutional collaboration for ensuring
the persistence of the nation's ecosystem and parks.
This adaptation approach will allow for a systematic analysis of
the institutions that manage natural resources, the factors that make
species and natural resources vulnerable to impending climate change
and the identification of institutional changes to enhance resilience.
Proactive measures to address climate change impacts have proven to be
more cost-effective and efficient than reactive measures (e.g.,
Schneider et al. 2000; Easterling et al. 2004). With concerted planning
for adaptation, adaptation measures can be implemented in the course of
short-term operational and longer-term strategic planning and
management decisions (Paavola and Adger 2002; Luers and Moser 2006). I
will focus in this testimony on concrete examples of tools and
approaches that represent The Conservancy's experience at developing
decision support tools for climate adaptation and the development and
implementation of action plans for an adaptive approach.
Decision-Support Tools for Climate Change Impacts
There is so much climate change information that managers and
decision-makers can easily become overwhelmed. Information on climate
change and its uncertainty, past and future, is not readily accessible
to managers and decision makers and distilled in an applicable form. It
is for this reason that Conservancy scientists have developed decision-
support tools such the ``Climate Wizard'' (see www.climatewiz.org) that
allow users choose any place and get records of past temperature and
precipitation trends as well as future projections under different
scenarios and the ``Climate Stress Index'' which interprets that
climate impacts data relative to the climate under which management now
occurs and at scales relevant for decision-making.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8662.001
.epsClimate Stress Index: Figure shows how different the future
climate (precipitation on the left and temperature on the right) will
be relative the past climate under which resource managers have come
accustom. The Drought Stress Index (left) indicates whether the change
in precipitation will be low, medium, high or unprecedented relative to
the last 100 years and whether there is low or high uncertainty
associated with the change. The Heat Stress Index (right) indicates
whether the change in temperature will be low, medium, high or
unprecedented relative to the last 100 years and whether there is low
or high uncertainty associated with the change.
Cost-Impact Study for Reality Check on What Adaptation Strategies are
Cost-Effective
With impacts of climate change, new land protection and species
management strategies may needed to maintain and achieve current
conservation goals but we will have to be smart about the use of
limited resources. In an analysis of a 780,000 acre (320,000 ha)
Conservancy project area around San Jose, California, we found 43% of
the endemic, highly-restricted species at high risk of local extinction
requiring the establishment of corridors and the implementation of
assisted migration strategies to new suitable areas; and 41% of the
wide-ranging species in need of new climate-adaptive conservation
strategies, such as new land use, land acquisition and land management
contracts, in order to persist in the future. The total cost of
sustaining the biodiversity and ecosystem function of this landscape
under a current climate would likely exceed $300M during the next 40
years. Under a changing climate, the total cost could exceed $750
million, or a 2.5 times increase. With considerable emphasis on the
adoption of new policies to incentivize implementation of lower-cost
climate-adapted strategies in place of traditional, resource-intensive
strategies such as land acquisition, the costs can be reduced
considerably. Methodologies and tools developed in this study should be
made widely-available to all natural lands managers.
Cost-Impact Studies for Reality Check of What Is at Stake to Lose
In a California Energy Commission--funded study on the impacts of
climate change on ecosystem service production and value, the
Conservancy values the economic impact of climate change on our natural
resources in the state of California and the ecosystem services they
provide (Shaw et al. 2009). In this study, we show that California's
famous grasslands and forests will likely shrink in area and generally
become more shrubby and scrubby. Less grassland habitat means mean
fewer opportunities for ranchers to graze cows on natural forage. The
loss of natural forage not only deprives consumers of naturally fed
beef, but results in a loss of profits for ranchers who must raise
fewer cows or pay more to feed these cattle using grain and other
sources of feed. By 2070, we estimate the annual loss in net income to
ranchers could be between $22 million and $312 million annually.
Likewise, the economic effects of climate change on forests will be
substantial. A change in the ability of California forests to store
carbon will affect the state's ability to meet greenhouse gas emission
goals and will result in broader impacts on society as a whole. The
market cost of changes in carbon storage by estimating how much it
would cost to buy carbon offsets in a carbon trading market could be as
high as $22 billion annually by 2070. Lost carbon storage also will
contribute to global climate change and have an impact on economies
around the world. This ``social cost'' of the lost carbon storage could
result in impact that could cost society more than $62 billion
annually. However, the sooner we act, the less likely we will be forced
to incur this full cost.
VI. Examples of Implementation of Adaptation Implementation: Learning
By Doing
The Nature Conservancy does not have all the answer but has
developed tools for understanding climate impacts, has begun to develop
a series of adaptation strategies--ecosystem by ecosystem--and we have
begun to implement these tools and strategies to better understand what
will work best. Below are two examples of our adaptation approach:
Example One--Coastlines:
Coastlines have always been dynamic, but are now more so than ever
because of changing storm patterns and sea level rise, placing human
and natural communities at greater risk. The costs of these hazards to
human and natural communities are increasing as coastal development
continues and natural buffers, such as coastal wetlands, dunes, and
mangroves are lost. Despite a growing awareness of the reality of these
hazards, communities and local decision makers still have little access
to information on likely changes in storm and flooding risk or tools to
visualize the potential impacts and identify alternative scenarios. As
a consequence, communities are unable to integrate sea level rise and
coastal hazard risk into decision-making regarding natural resource
protection and land use management. This information is needed to
protect human communities from the dramatic changes that are underway.
The Conservancy has contributed to the development of two different
examples of tools and approaches that can help address these services
and objectives jointly in the Florida panhandle (www.marineebm.org/
32.htm) and a more advanced and developing decision support tool for
the southern shores of Long Island (http://www.coastalresilience.org).
The salt marshes, sea-grass beds and oyster reefs of Florida's Gulf
Coast harbor manatees, sea turtles, piping plovers and many other
threatened species, as well as serving as nurseries for economically
important shrimp, crab and red snapper. These habitats also provide
protection from storm surges that accompany hurricanes. Yet strategies
to defend and restore coastal ecosystems--which could simultaneously
assist people and expand habitats for threatened and economically
valuable species--have largely been ignored in favor of engineering
projects (diking, building levees, and hardening the coastline) that
accelerate erosion and habitat loss. Working with scientists from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Conservancy
recently combined maps of critical habitats and threatened species in
the Florida Panhandle with maps of anticipated storm surges and of
human communities most physically and socio-economically vulnerable to
storm damage. By overlaying these data sets, we were able to identify
areas in which restoration should simultaneously protect the most
vulnerable human populations as well as many of the area's most
important species.
Example Two--California Grasslands:
In the Mount Hamilton range, south of San Francisco, The
Conservancy is implementing a conservation plan called the Mount
Hamilton Project. The Conservancy developing a climate-adapted
conservation plan using information about temperature and precipitation
changes and employing climate adaptation strategies to ensure the
persistence of a full array of species and ecosystems important to
California's biodiversity. An example of one important species found at
the site is the Bay Checkerspot Butterfly (Euphydryas editha bayensis).
The federally-threatened butterfly relies on a native plant that was
once widespread, but now persists only on rare serpentine soil patches.
Current conservation plans, identify for protection the areas where the
species is currently found but not where the future habitats are. The
areas of suitable climate for the butterfly and its host plants are
projected to shift upslope, but the distribution of suitable soils is
too limited to support their gradual migration to higher elevations. In
this case, the butterfly, and other sensitive species, would go locally
extinct without climate adaptation strategies including (1) the
drafting of a climate-sensitive conservation plan that identifies for
protection those areas where the butterfly can persist in the future
and (2) the relocation populations to those climate-safe areas. We are
currently updating our methodology to create site specific conservation
plans to take current and future habitat needs into consideration, in
addition
VII. Closing Recommendations
Moving forward, it will be important to carefully explore what will
be needed to implement adaptation strategies on a scale that will be
meaningful for protecting on natural and human communities. I encourage
you to consider the inclusion of the following key elements in a policy
context:
1. Dedicated Funding: While in the long run ecosystem-based
adaptation will be cost effective, there is an immediate and long-term
need for a dedicated revenue stream to support the data collection and
synthesis, the development of a robust adaptation approach and its
implementation.
2. National Climate Change Adaptation Plan: Implementation of
comprehensive adaptation approach will not be easy. I encourage the
development of National Climate Change Adaptation Program with a
nationally prioritized list of ecosystem-based adaptation strategies
and action to address climate change impacts, guidelines for how that
is to be accomplished, and guidance on when infrastructure solutions
such as raising roads and building sea-walls are necessary.
3. Climate Change Adaptation Partnership: The National Climate
Change Adaptation Plan should be designed to facilitate partnerships
among all levels of government and the private sector.
4. Avoiding Impacts Counter to Adaptation Goals: Federal and State
agencies taking action to prevent damage to roads and property from sea
level rise or flooding should avoid damage to natural systems to the
maximum extent practicable.
5. Facilitate Land Acquisition for Adaptation: Federal, state and
local agencies will need funding for land, easements and cooperative
management agreements to facilitate ecosystem-based adaptation and
connectivity.
As this Subcommittee contemplates legislation for the adaptation of
our valued National Parks, it is faced with the daunting task of
simultaneously configuring our policies and economy to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and support our natural and human communities
to adapt to climate change. We do have very practical solutions for
advancing both to great success. I would like to extend an offer to
work with the Committee as you explore policy options for assisting the
nation in adapting to our future climate.
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______
Mr. Grijalva. Professor Thomas Swetnam, Director, Tree Ring
Laboratory, from the great University of Arizona. I say that,
I'm alumna. I'm allowed one perk every once in a while.
Professor Swetnam.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS W. SWETNAM, DIRECTOR, TREE RING LABORATORY,
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, TUCSON, ARIZONA
Mr. Swetnam. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Thank
you for inviting me. And thank you to Congresswoman Napolitano
for being here.
For the benefit of everyone else, I am a Professor of
Dendrochronology, which is tree rings sciences. And I use tree
rings to study forest ecosystems. And I have had the great
pleasure and honor to work in national parks and national
forests across this country for the last 30 years. My research
has mainly focused on the use of the tree rings to study forest
fires, insect outbreaks, and also the role of climate
variability and climate change on driving disturbances in our
national landscapes.
My written testimony has three main points. The first one,
which we've heard quite a bit about already, is the need for
better coordination and collaboration among Federal, state,
county, and private entities.
The second point--which we've already heard--is that
there's a need to maintain the parks as canaries in the coal
mine, if you will. They are really some of our best places to
understand climate change, to track it, to monitor it, to know
how it's occurring, and also to educate the public on the
impacts of climate change.
The last point is about the need for science infrastructure
for building our capacity to do better and more science to deal
with the climate change problems that we're facing.
On the first point, better coordination and collaboration,
I was very encouraged to hear Jon Jarvis' comments about the
Parks Service's intention and indeed their work already in
coordinating among the multiple agencies. In my written
testimony I provide a couple of examples from Southern Arizona,
in Chairman Grijalva's district, in fact, that exemplify the
problems that we're facing, the climate change problems we're
facing.
Climate change is operating at regional and landscape
scales. And by landscapes I mean whole mountain ranges, entire
watersheds, multiple state. And of course at these scales we
must better coordinate and interact among the different
jurisdictions, different Federal agencies and state agencies
and the county agencies.
The examples I give from Southern Arizona include invasive
species, the problem of buffelgrass in invading the Sonoran
Desert. But this is a problem recurring elsewhere in the
American deserts. Here in Joshua Tree and the great basin there
are other invasive species occurring. And these are leading to
extraordinary wildfires that are changing the ecosystems.
Climate change is most likely involved in promoting some
growth of these invasives, but also through the droughts which
promote fire.
In Southern Arizona there's a very dynamic group engaged
now in dealing with the buffelgrass problem, the Southern
Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center. This is a Federal,
state, and county and private enterprise to really begin to
deal with it. And I think it's a good example of this
coordination that needs to take place.
The second example I describe in my written testimony is
the Firescape Initiative. And this is working up at the tops of
the mountains. Our Sky Islands of Southern Arizona and New
Mexico have forests at the top, and they're burning. We
recently had more than a hundred thousand acres burn in the
Santa Catalina Mountains in 2002 and 2003, burned up 300 homes.
These kinds of things are happening all across the West and
elsewhere in the country as we know.
To deal with these problems we need to have coordination
among multiple agencies. And so restoration, work of dealing
with the fuels problems, and dealing with the invasives also on
these higher elevations is necessary.
In this regard I want to actually thank Chairman Grijalva
for his leadership on the recent passage of the Forest
Landscape Restoration Act. This is precisely the kind of
Federal support that's needed to really move to the landscape
scales in terms of dealing with these broad scale problems.
The second point is that the parks and the forests are
really essential locations for tracking climate change and
monitoring climate change. I give a couple of examples there of
recent studies published. I was involved in one of these
looking at wildfire occurrence across the whole Western United
States.
Tony Westerling, Professor at the University of California
at Merced, and his colleagues at Scripps Institute in San
Diego, we pulled together a record of forest fires across all
of the Western U.S. And we published this in Science two years
ago. We show almost seven times increase in area burned in the
last two decades relative to the previous two decades, more
large fires. This increase is well correlated with the rise in
temperatures across the Western United States.
Further, there's been many more early springs. Spring is
occurring early, the snow melt is coming off the mountains, and
the fuels are drying out earlier. There's been more early
springs in recent decades.
The second paper I describe in my written testimony--and I
do have a couple of graphics at the end of testimony that show
some of the results--a recent paper published in January in the
Journal of Science by USGS scientists and their colleagues
across the West showing rising tree mortality rates across the
whole Western United States. And they very carefully analyze
these data and show that these trends are regardless of
elevation, of forest type, of land use history, the forest fire
history. We're getting increasing rates of tree mortality. And
they concluded that this is likely related to the warming
temperatures across the West, because all of the other factors
have been controlled for in this case. My examples there are
that we would not have been able to do these large-scale
studies of fire and tree mortality if it had not been for the
monitoring data available from national parks and national
forests. So, we really need to maintain these monitoring of
data generating networks of our parks and forests, and improve
them, expand them.
The third and final point is that we need to build our
capacity, our science capacity, within the parks and within and
among the agencies. I give an example of one of the most
effective types of--we call translational science, moving
science to management and operations.
Place-based scientists, these are scientists that are
located at the national parks. And there's relatively few of
these. USGS, through some legacy, has a number of scientists
located at the national parks. And these folks have been very
productive. The Parks Services Research Learning Centers is
another great opportunity for science to be done in the parks
and right adjacent to the parks. There are other kinds of
science mechanisms that we need to build, including the CESU's
and the interaction with the NOAA RISAs, the regional impact
centers that NOAA funds.
So, one thing I see here is a need for better coordination
and institutional linkages, more explicit linkages to be made
between the USGS scientists, the Park Service scientists and
NOAA scientists and the other agencies that are involved in
providing science support for the parks. We need to build the
science capacity.
Finally, one of the things we saw from the New Deal, which
has been very valuable as I travel through parks, as anybody
who travels through parks, they see the bridges and the roads
and the trails and the great rock and timber structures that
were built during the 1930s. And so the parks, we've seen a
really big boost from the New Deal in terms of infrastructure.
But we also had a science boost during that time frame. As I go
back through the old records, the old documentary records, I
see that a lot of the original mapping and the original species
inventories and the original science work was also funded at
that time. And we need this same sort of kind of investment now
in the parks, both for the real infrastructure, the solid
infrastructure, but also the science infrastructure, to deal
with climate change as it is now.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Swetnam follows:]
Statement of Thomas W. Swetnam, Professor of Dendrochronology &
Watershed Management, Director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research,
University of Arizona
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me today to discuss the importance of America's National Parks
in understanding climate change impacts, and the need to mitigate and
adapt to these coming impacts on the ``crown jewels'' of our public
lands system.
I am a scientist with more than 30 years of research and
applications experience in National Parks, primarily in the western
United States. My expertise is in the areas of forest ecosystems, fire
history, insect outbreaks, and the effects of climate change. Although
my research has basic aspects, it has largely focused on applications
to management, such as the use of fire and forest history knowledge to
guide ecological restoration of forest ecosystems. This work has been
particularly useful in places like the giant sequoia groves in Sequoia,
Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks in California and the
ponderosa pine forests of the Rincon Mountain Wilderness in Saguaro
National Park, near Tucson. In recent years, my research has focused
primarily on climate change and its past and current effects on fires
and insect outbreaks.
The main points of my statement are as follows:
The coming climate-caused changes require landscape to
regional-scale perspectives and management. These broad scales require
much more effective collaboration among federal, state and private
entities than has occurred before. Management challenges also require
increased translational science capacity and partnerships between
universities and federal agencies. I will briefly describe a landscape-
scale collaboration in southern Arizona to illustrate some of the
issues, needs, and potential.
The National Parks are critically important areas for
tracking and understanding climate change impacts on ecosystems and
watersheds. The Parks include many of the least human-altered
ecosystems on the planet. As such they provide a unique and valuable
perspective on climate-caused changes that have occurred in the past
and are occurring now. Moreover, because the Parks contain our most
cherished biota and landscapes, the climate change effects on these
living things and places are naturally of great concern to the American
people.
To carry out the needed science support for mitigation of
and adaptation to climate change impacts in the National Parks, federal
agencies and their science collaborators in the universities need to
build basic science and translational science capacity. A very
effective mechanism of science support within and for the National
Parks is ``place-based'' science. I will describe examples of this
model, and I recommend that it be broadly replicated and
institutionally strengthened. Additional science capacity building is
needed that will involve other approaches, including the National Park
Service's Monitoring Networks and Research Learning Centers, and
coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Regional Integrated Science and Assessment centers (RISAs).
Landscape-Scale Management--Collaboration and Science Needed to Support
It
A common observation, as reflected in statements by witnesses who
have testified earlier this year to this committee, is the need for
better coordination and cooperation among the multiple federal and
state agencies involved in managing our ecosystems and watersheds. This
need arises because the impacts of climate change are broad scale; they
do not follow administrative boundaries, and neither will effective
mitigation and adaptation solutions. As temperatures continue to rise
and droughts of greater severity occur in coming years and decades we
may be challenged to assist re-location of plants and animals via
migration corridors or direct transplantation to more suitable
habitats.
Most of the necessary science, mapping, planning, and
prioritization for adaptation is yet to be done. An approach that will
be highly valuable is the development of climate change scenarios at
the scale of bio-regions that can be used for planning and prioritizing
in coordination among multiple agencies. I am encouraged to know that
the National Park Service (NPS) is developing a strategic framework for
action that has adaptation as a major component (Leigh Welling, NPS
Climate Change Coordinator, personal communication). As part of this
framework, NPS has already begun to develop a scenario-based approach
for planning at the Park level. The first prototype workshop took place
in Joshua Tree National Park in November 2007 and involved scientists,
natural and cultural resource managers, and educators. Several other
scenario workshops are being planned for 2009 and 2010, involving
Assateague Island in the northeast, Wind Cave in the northern Prairies,
and Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in the Rocky Mountains.
These efforts need to become more widespread and coordinated.
As we work to adapt or restore ecosystems to conditions that are
more resilient to climate changes and related disturbances--such as
wildfires and insect outbreaks--we will need to implement treatments
(e.g., mechanical thinning of forests, eradication/control of invasive
species, and prescribed fire) at landscape scales. By ``landscape
scales'', I mean entire watersheds and mountain ranges, typically
extending over tens to hundreds of thousands of acres, i.e., the scales
of National Parks, or networks of Parks. Examples from the landscapes
where I live and work in southern Arizona (including Congressman
Grijalva's district) serve to illustrate some of the issues and needs
here:
The mountains and desert basins of southern Arizona are often
referred to as the ``Sky Islands''. The mountains rise as ``islands''
of oak woodlands and conifer forests above a sea of grasslands and
cactus-shrub deserts. Ecosystems that span these elevational gradients
range from the low Sonoran deserts to the high montane forests. Most of
these ecosystems are increasingly at risk of irreversible damage from a
climate change-related disturbance: unnatural and uncharacteristic
wildfire.
In the lowlands, the chief culprit is buffelgrass (Pennisetum
cilare), an invasive species introduced into the Sonoran desert
originally as forage for livestock. Buffelgrass has now spread widely
throughout the Tucson Basin, including into Saguaro National Park.
Buffelgrass is extremely flammable. The spreading clumps of buffelgrass
are forming continuous patches hundreds of acres in size in some
places, and they are carrying extraordinarily hot, running fires
through the Sonoran desert. These fires kill most of the cactus and
other native species because they are not adapted to such fires, which
have never occurred with this severity or extent in these ecosystems
before. Buffelgrass, in contrast, is highly adapted to fire and it re-
sprouts prolifically.
This problem of widespread invasive species promoting unnatural
wildfires is increasingly common in the American deserts and our
National Parks. In addition to buffelgrass invasion in the Sonoran
Desert, red brome, cheat grass and other invasive species are spreading
prolifically in the Southwest and elsewhere, including National Parks
in the Mohave and Great Basin deserts. In summer of 2005, invasive
grasses fueled desert wildfires that approached a quarter of a million
acres in central Arizona (the Cave Creek Fire Complex) and three-
quarters of a million acres in southern Nevada.
The impacts of grass invasions and altered fire regimes in the
deserts are many, looming and costly. They include threats to life and
property in urban and exurban areas, significant economic losses (i.e.,
decreased property value, lost tourism revenues, and escalating weed
control and fire suppression budgets), and compromises to biodiversity,
protected lands and conservation initiatives. These fast-evolving
threats are catching communities and fire departments off guard and ill
prepared.
The connection with climate change is not entirely clear, but we
know that higher CO2 levels will favor cheatgrass and red
brome at the expense of native species, and that warmer winters will
push buffelgrass higher in elevation and farther north. Our National
Parks and Monuments are especially in peril, and save for a few
valiant, grassroots efforts we seem to be losing this battle. One day,
we may not only face a Glacier National Park without glaciers, but also
a Joshua Tree National Park without Joshua trees and a Saguaro National
Park without its iconic saguaro.
A growing concern is the potential spread of wildfires from the
lowlands to the highlands, and vice versa. The mountain tops of the Sky
Islands have already experienced several damaging wildfires. The 2002
Bullock Fire and the 2003 Aspen Fire in the Santa Catalina Mountains,
for example, collectively burned more than 115,000 acres and destroyed
about 300 homes and businesses in the town of Summerhaven. Similar
events have occurred across the western U.S. in recent years, and it is
increasingly evident that this rising trend in ``megafire'' occurrence
is partly associated with warming temperatures, earlier arrival of
spring, and drought conditions (Westerling et al. 2006).
Forest changes (e.g., fuel accumulations) due to a century of fire
suppression and land uses (e.g., livestock grazing, logging, etc.) are
also involved in this problem in many but not all forests. More than
35% of the area of the Bullock and Aspen Fires resulted in total or
substantial canopy kill of the forest, leaving very large ``canopy
holes'' which promote erosion of forest soils, and severe downstream
watershed impacts. Although frequent, low severity, ``surface fires''
were a common and natural ecological process in our Southwestern
ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests in the past, these recent
fires are burning uncharacteristically (and unnaturally) hot as ``crown
fires. The result is conversion of forest stands to shrublands or
grasslands, and damaging effects on soils, habitats, and watershed
values.
Landscape-scale collaborative efforts are underway in the Sky
Islands, focusing on forest restoration that aims to mitigate and adapt
to the climate change-related ``shocks'' of megafires. The
``FireScape'' collaborative is an approach that has been particularly
effective at working at landscape scales in the multi-agency context.
FireScape is a collaboration of the Coronado National Forest, The
Nature Conservancy, Saguaro National Park, The University of Arizona
and other partners to provide an umbrella for safe, ecologically sound,
broad-scale, multi-party fire management. The first FireScape project
was developed for the Huachuca Mountains of southeastern Arizona. This
project is nearing the implementation phase.
A developing FireScape project for the Santa Catalina and Rincon
Mountains surrounding Tucson has a focus on utilizing the mosaic of
fuel conditions left by the recent Bullock and Aspen fires. The idea
here is that the mosaic of low, moderate and high severity burned areas
in the Bullock and Aspen Fires can be used as effective fuel breaks and
opportunities for reintroducing prescribed fire and thinning treatments
at landscape scales. This approach is likely to be safer, more cost
effective, and ecologically sensitive than such treatments in unburned
landscapes. In some areas the recent wildfires have effectively begun
the restoration process of reducing fuel accumulations and forest stand
densities. It is necessary, however, to follow up with treatments
within the next decade or less, otherwise it is likely that the
beneficial effects of the mosaic will be lost.
Both the buffelgrass and forest wildfire problems of southern
Arizona, like similar climate change-related problems elsewhere in
U.S., require landscape-scale thinking, effective translational science
partnerships, and sustained implementation with follow through using
science-based adaptive management. The buffelgrass efforts are
exemplary of highly effective multi-jurisdictional coordination and
planning to deal with a landscape-scale problem affected by climate,
and analogous to many of the climate change problems we will be facing
in years ahead. Space is limiting here to describe in detail the
collaborative efforts that have gone into planning southern Arizona
buffelgrass control and the landscape fire planning for the mountains,
so I will refer here to web links where more information can be
obtained: see Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center at
http://www.buffelgrass.org/, and http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coronado/
under ``FireScape on the Catalina and Rincon Mountains''.
The key points I want to emphasize from these examples of
landscape-scale, multi-agency management problems are the following:
1. Planning, collaboration, and implementation of restoration and
climate-change adaptation programs at landscape-scales are essential.
Both the Tucson Basin buffelgrass and Sky Islands FireScape examples
cross numerous administrative boundaries and to be effective these
projects must involve collaboration and coordination among federal,
state, and county agencies, and with private land owners.
Fundamentally, what is needed is support for the science, planning, and
implementation of treatments and restoration work on the ground.
In this regard, I wish to commend Congressman Grijalva for his
vision and leadership in helping develop and pass the recent Forest
Landscape Restoration Act. This is precisely the kind of federal
support and leadership needed for landscape-scale restoration projects.
2. In addition to funding mechanisms for planning and
implementation, we need to develop science support capacity. The
Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center (SABCC) and Sky
Islands FireScape initiatives both point to the need for state-of-the-
art decision support and expertise in geospatial tools for mapping and
prioritizing treatments, and for modeling spread of invasive species
and fire behavior at multiple scales. If we are going to engage in
landscape-scale treatments and adaptation, we should do it with our
best scientific understanding, and monitor the results in a scientific
framework. University collaboration is highly valuable in this regard
because it brings scientific expertise, creativity, and credibility, as
well as educational and training value for young scientists and
managers.
3. Both the SABCC and FireScape programs have great potential to
be national models of adaptation and mitigation of climate change-
related impacts on federal, state, and private lands.
The Value of National Parks and Other Federal Lands for Tracking and
Understanding Climate Change
There are many uncertainties about future climate change impacts on
ecosystems and watersheds. Much of what we have learned about the
effects of past and recent climate variations and change on ecosystems
has come from studies conducted within the National Parks and National
Forests. In the future, we need to continue and expand monitoring of
climate and ecosystems within Parks, because these places offer some of
the best landscapes to study climate-driven changes with the least
amount of human land-use effects. Furthermore, the rationale for the
Parks was, and is, that these are the places we care the most about in
terms of protecting and preserving these wonders for the enjoyment by
people, now and in the future.
There are two examples of climate change impacts in National Parks
and Forests that I want to bring to your attention to illustrate the
value of federal lands, and long-term monitoring data that comes from
them. The first is a study of forest fire activity on federal lands in
the western U.S. that I coauthored in the journal Science in 2006 with
Dr. Tony Westerling of University of California, Merced and colleagues
at the Scripps Institute, University of California, San Diego
(Westerling et al. 2006). We used wildfire occurrence records primarily
from National Forests and Parks in the eleven western states. We
restricted our analyses to the period after 1970 and to fires larger
than 200 hectares (about 1,000 acres) because this was the most
complete and reliable type and period of documentary record.
We found a nearly 7-fold increase in area burned during the recent
17 year period from 1987 to 2003 compared to the earlier 17 year period
from 1970 to 1986. This change was significantly correlated with rising
spring and summer temperatures across this region, and the years with
greatest numbers of large fires were consistently associated with years
when spring arrived earlier, as measured by peak runoff dates in
rivers. From locations of the large fires in different elevations and
forest types, and patterns of spatial/temporal moisture deficits, it
was apparent that warming climate was the key driver overall, and
especially in some regions (e.g., the Northern Rockies). Both forest
changes (fuel accumulations) and warming combined were likely important
in other regions (e.g., the Southwest).
The second example is a recent paper published by a group of
scientists working in western forests, led by U.S. Geological Survey
scientists located at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Drs.
Philip van Mantgem and Nathan Stephenson and their colleagues gathered
long-term forest monitoring data from 76 forest plots across the
western U.S. (van Mantgem et al. 2009). Using data from more than
58,000 monitored trees they found that 86% of the plots showed
increasing tree mortality rates over the period from about 1955 to
2007. The mortality rates doubled over periods ranging from 17 to 29
years in different plots and sub-regions during the studied time
period. Mortality rates increased regardless of sub-region, elevation,
tree size (age), species, or type of natural fire regime characteristic
to the forests. The authors concluded that climate change (warming and
drought) in the western U.S., and consequent physiological and
ecological stresses on trees, was most likely the dominant factor
leading to increased tree mortality rates.
Both of these studies illustrate the power of long-term monitoring
data sets from National Parks and Forests for detecting and tracking
climate change impacts. Neither of the studies could have been
conducted without the existence of these federal units, and sustained
dedication of scientists and managers who have carried out the
monitoring and record keeping over many years. In addition to the
national policy implications and the public educational values of such
broad-scale studies, the results from local monitoring data sets have
importance for management of individual National Parks and Forests.
Another important value of our Parks and Forests is that they are
great places to teach our citizens about climate change and to directly
engage them in the necessary monitoring and science. For example,
federal agencies and the academic community are collaborating in an
exciting national monitoring initiative, the USA-National Phenology
Network (www.usanpn.org). Phenology is the study of the timing of
events in the annual life cycle of plants and animals, including things
like budburst, first bloom and leafout in plants and emergence,
migration and hibernation in animals. A number of recent studies have
shown that these biological events can serve as sensitive indicators of
climate change effects on ecosystems. In essence, the NPN can serve as
an early warning and monitoring system of climate change.
One way for us to adapt to climate change is to integrate
phenological observations and models with climatic forecasts. There are
not enough scientists and technicians to do this routine monitoring
everywhere on the continent, so large-scale programs like USA-NPN will
also have to rely on ``citizen scientists''. What better place to start
these efforts than in our National Parks?
The key points I wish to emphasize from these examples are the
following:
1. The National Parks and other federal lands are particularly
valuable for monitoring, detecting, and tracking climate change.
2. Recent studies have begun to detect and describe probable,
widespread climate change impacts in western National Parks and
Forests, specifically increasing numbers of large forest fires and
increasing tree mortality rates. These are broad-scale patterns, and
the trends and primary causes of changes are different in some
locations and sub-regions.
3. The National Parks and Forests can play a key role in public
education about climate change and in carrying out broad-scale
monitoring. Engaging people directly in observing climate change
responses (e.g., the USA-NPN) is one approach. Programs such as the
NPS's Research Learning Centers will also be essential in these
endeavors.
The Value of Place-Based Science, and the Need for Expansion of
Translational Science Capacity
During the past several decades of conducting applied research in
National Parks and National Forests, one of the most effective models I
have seen of translational science is a ``place-based'' approach, where
scientists and their support teams are located at National Parks. There
is a long tradition of federal agency scientists being located at
research branch offices or laboratories on or near university campuses
(e.g., USGS and USFS laboratories). These university-located
laboratories have clearly been a huge benefit to applied science.
However, the particular niche of a place-based scientist located at a
National Park (or a Forest Service Supervisor's Office or Ranger
District) is relatively rare. In the western U.S., there may be as few
as a dozen or so such USGS lead scientists located in ``Field
Stations'' within or very near National Parks, and fewer in the eastern
U.S.
The productivity and positive impacts of these relatively few
place-based scientists are remarkable. The van Mantgem et al. Science
paper on tree mortality is a case in point. The lead authors, van
Mantgem and Stephenson, are place-based, USGS scientists at Sequoia
National Park. Another great example of scientific leadership and
impact of place-based science is the Western Mountain Initiative (see
http://www.cfr.washington.edu/research.fme/wmi/). This is a
collaboration of USGS and U.S. Forest Service scientists working on
climate change impact topics in the western U.S. Three of the principal
investigators on this team are place-based scientists at National Parks
and three are in federal laboratories located at or near universities.
The values of place-based science are well illustrated by the
example of my colleague, Dr. Craig Allen, at Bandelier National
Monument in northern New Mexico (see http://www.fort.usgs.gov/
resources/spotlight/place/).
To summarize, the key values of place-based science include:
1. Place-based scientists can interact with on-site with managers
on a daily basis, resulting in more effective communication,
application, and follow-through of relevant science.
2. Place-based scientists can more effectively lead on proposing,
conducting, arranging, overseeing, facilitating, and communicating the
needed local research and monitoring.
3. Place based-scientists can act as a bridge between research and
management, working to identify the information needs of management
problems, secure external research funding, foster collaborations with
outside institutions to conduct needed research, and communicate
research findings quickly and effectively to local managers and the
public.
4. Place-based scientists develop substantial expertise in the
ecology of their particular landscape. Eventually this allows them to
become information brokers of the deep-rooted institutional knowledge
that comes from being in a place long enough to learn its lessons and
grow familiar with its natural and cultural rhythms and history.
5. Place-based science, involving scientists and their teams
located within National Parks, is a very effective model and it should
be replicated. Currently, most of these scientists at Parks are USGS
employees, but some of them started out as NPS researchers and they
were eventually transferred to the USGS. The relationship of these
scientists as translational-science support for local Parks and
regional networks of Parks should be more formally defined and
institutionalized in agreement between USGS and NPS, with the goal of
sustaining the high quality and increasingly important work they
conduct.
In addition to place-based science as described above there is need
for support of other models of translational science. For example, I am
aware that the National Park Service is currently developing a concept
for ``Bio-Regional Mitigation and Adaptation Planning Units'' to
coordinate scenario and adaptation planning efforts for Parks (Leigh
Welling, NPS Climate Change Coordinator, personal communication). The
Units would be strategically placed to utilize existing field
resources, such as the ``Inventory and Monitoring Networks'' and the
``Research Learning Centers''. They would also coordinate with other
entities, such as the NOAA RISAs, the USGS Field Stations and state and
local governments. The bio-regional, landscape approach is critical for
providing managers with relevant, up-to-date scientific information and
for ensuring climate change efforts are dynamic, flexible and
consistent across DOI and within other agencies
To be effective, the Units would need to have scientific, resource
management, and adaptation planning staff. Resource and planning staff
would use shared information to build defensible and comprehensive
scenarios that are integrated into a Resource Adaptation Plan for each
park. Tangible results would be a list of response actions to climate
change designed to reduce susceptibility of vulnerable species,
ecosystems, or historic assets to harm or loss. Such actions could
include documenting and inventorying historic sites that will be
submerged, protecting additional species, adapting park infrastructure,
identifying and protecting refugia and corridors, or transplantation
and relocation of resources in extreme cases.
The final science and management initiative I wish to bring to your
attention is a very dynamic consortium of federal and university
scientists called CIRMOUNT (Consortium of Integrated Climate Research
in Western Mountains) who came together in the early 2000s to
coordinate and converse on the issues of climate change impacts in
western North American mountains. Monitoring, conducting integrated
research, communicating science among disciplines, and promoting
policy-relevant databases are among the goals of CIRMOUNT. Climate
change impacts on National Parks and other federal lands are a common
focus of this consortium. This group has organized multiple symposia in
the past decade on climate impacts on ecosystems, water resources and
people. The meetings and initiatives include managers and policy makers
as well as scientists. I encourage anyone interested in climate change
impacts in the west to visit their website (http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/
cirmount/), get on the mailing list for the newsletter (Mountain
Views), and attend one of the biennial meetings. It is my hope that
CIRMOUNT will be sustained in coming years by establishment of a
central office in support of this dynamic organization and their
important work.
References cited:
van Mantgem, P. J., N. L. Stephenson, J. C. Byrne, L. D. Daniels, J.F.
Franklin, P.Z. Fule, M. E. Harmon, A. J. Larson, J. M. Smith,
A. H. Taylor, T. T. Veblen. 2009. Widespread increase of tree
mortality rates in the Western United States. Science 323-521-
523.
Westerling, A. L., H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, and T. W. Swetnam. 2006.
Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. wildfire
activity. Science 313:940-943.
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Mr. Grijalva. Mr. John Coleman, Senior Meteorologist, KUSI,
San Diego, California.
Mr. Coleman, welcome and I look forward to your comments.
STATEMENT OF JOHN COLEMAN, SENIOR METEOROLOGIST, KUSI, SAN
DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Coleman. Thank you very much to the Committee for the
invitation to appear today. And to any who listen to my remarks
or who happen to read them later, I thank you for your
consideration of my testimony.
I come before the Subcommittee with no allusions or
expectations. And I'm aware, for the majority of the Committee,
for the other witnesses here, and for most involved government
officials, that my conclusions will run counter to your
interests and agenda and I fear will be ignored. But,
nonetheless, I have made the effort to be here today because I
feel I have to contribute something that at least should be in
the record.
And here's what I think I know as a scientific fact. There
is no manmade significant global warming or climate change at
this time. There hasn't been any in the past. And there is
little reason to fear any in the future.
Now, I don't say that the activities of man do not alter
the weather and climate, because it is clear that they do. What
I said is that there is no significant manmade climate change,
and that none should reasonably be expected to occur in the
future.
I have visited most of the national parks in the United
States over the many years of the past, mostly with my
children. I love our parks. I have enormous appreciation for
the efforts of our government to protect our environment and to
provide places and ways for the citizens to enjoy the amazing
beauty and the powerful natural forces that are at work around
us and for us to interact with the thousands of species that
live in the parks and those regulated natural areas. Clearly it
is a huge task to balance between access and protection, and I
honor that.
But here is the crux of what I contribute to the issue
before us. The science behind the current global warming
manmade climate change commotion has failed to verify. The
hypothesis that our carbon footprints produced by our use of
fossil fuels is producing a significant greenhouse effect that
will lead to climate calamity has failed to verify. So, I
repeat, there's no significant manmade global climate change.
I have studied the research papers of the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and examined the
science presented by Al Gore and his books, his movies, and his
PowerPoint, and I have respect for Mr. Gore. He served
honorably as Vice President and as a U.S. Senator. And I have
traced the history of the development of the concept of carbon
dioxide in the exhaust from our cars and our power plants and
our industrial plants entering our atmosphere and interacting
with the primary greenhouse gas, water vapor to magnify
warming. It all collapses into a failed theory when examined
with scientific care.
And I want you to know I'm not alone in reaching this
conclusion. In the past year 34,000 scientists, 10,000 of them
with Ph.D.s, have signed a statement debunking global warming.
There is no solid scientific evidence that by burning fossil
fuels our civilization increases the amount of carbon dioxide,
CO2--excuse me. There is solid evidence that by
burning fossil fuels we increase the amount of CO2
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, even after 150 years
of burning fossil fuels, CO2 remains a tiny trace
gas. To be precise, only 380 molecules out of every one million
are CO2.
Scientists with an anti-fossil fuel agenda developed a
theory, what they call radiative forcing, to explain how this
trace gas could create runaway greenhouse warming. And they put
that theory into general circulation computer models, and their
models then projected a continuous rapid rise in temperatures
globally year after year. And in the 1980s and the 1990s their
models seemed to be on track as the temperatures climbed. And
in 1998 that warming stopped. By 2002 a rapid cooling had
begun. And that cooling continues today.
The computer proof has gone poof. It has failed. It has
been clear to me and many others around me that warming in the
'80s and '90s was at the peak of a solar cycle. And now that
the sun has gone quiet, very quiet, that cooling now grips our
planet. Yet the models continue to predict warming. And it's
not happening. There is no significant warming from
CO2. And in fact our temperatures have now retreated
to the point where they began a hundred years ago.
I am painfully aware that the global warming has become a
political issue, and I deeply regret that. Because the latest
Gallup Poll documents the wide divide on this issue. Sixty-six
percent of the Republicans are of the opinion that the claims
of global warming are exaggerated. Only 22 percent of Democrats
are of that position.
Now I want to make it very clear that my conclusion is in
no way politically based. And I regret that political tie-in
because it makes it very difficult. I recall I was a science
reporter for ABC back in the 1970s when there was a similar
theory of excitement about a coming Ice Age. And thankfully our
government and our political parties didn't get involved then.
So, when the science got things straightened out and no Ice Age
developed, the frenzy quickly faded away. But unfortunately
this time with people with the anti-fossil fuel agenda had
jumped onto the global warming bandwagon and they just don't
seem to want to let go. They have claimed that they have
changed their rhetoric to climate change from global warming,
but they're still wrapped up in the cap and trade to tax our
fossil fuels.
This tax will do great harm to our economy. And I think it
will do nothing of consequence to protect the environment. So,
my advice to the National Park Service and to this Subcommittee
is do nothing to mitigate manmade global warming or climate
change because there is none. Reject your extremists' agendas,
concentrate on your wonderful work, which I honor, of
protecting our natural resources and making the natural
experiences available to us citizens of today and the
generations to follow.
And to any who have an interest in pursuing the sources
behind my scientific conclusions, I have provided a list of
internet links with my written testimony.
And again I thank you, knowing I run quite counter to the
drift of this hearing, for allowing me to present my testimony
and place it on the record.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coleman follows:]
Statement of John Coleman
Thank you to the Committee for the invitation to appear here today.
And to any who listen to my remarks or read them later, thank you for
your consideration of my testimony.
I come before this Subcommittee with no allusions or expectations.
I am aware that for the majority of the Committee and most involved
government officials my conclusions will run counter to your interests
and agenda and will be ignored. None-the-less, I have made the effort
to be here today because I feel what I have to contribute should at
least be in the record.
Here is what I know as scientific fact: There is no significant
man-made global warming or climate change at this time, there has not
been any in the past and there is little reason to fear any in the
future.
I did not say that the activities of man do not alter the weather
and climate, because it is clear they do. What I said there is no
significant man-made climate change and none should be reasonably
expected to occur in the future.
I have visited most of the National Parks in the United States and
love them. I have enormous appreciation for the efforts to protect our
environment and provide places and ways for the citizens to enjoy the
amazing beauty and powerful natural forces at work around us and
interact with the thousands of species that live in those parks and
related natural areas. Clearly, it is a huge task to balance between
access and protection. I honor that.
But here is crux of what I can contribute to the issue before us.
The science behind this current global warming, man-made climate change
commotion, has failed to verify. The hypothesis that our carbon
footprints produced by our use of fossil fuels is producing a
significant greenhouse effect that will lead to climate calamity has
failed to verify. So I repeat, there is no significant man-made global
climate change.
I have studied the research papers of the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and examined the science
presented by Al Gore in his books, his movie and his power point. I
have traced the history of the development of the concept of carbon
dioxide in the exhaust from our cars, power plants and industrial
plants entering the atmosphere and interacting with the primary
greenhouse gas, water vapor, to magnify warming. It all collapses into
a failed theory when examined with scientific care. I am not alone in
reaching this conclusion. In the past year, 34 thousand scientists, 10
thousand with PhDs, have signed a statement debunking global warming.
There is solid scientific evidence that by burning fossil fuels our
civilization increases the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2, in
the atmosphere. However, even after 150 years of burning fossil fuels,
CO2 remains a tiny trace gas. To be precise only 380
molecules out of every one million are CO2. Scientists with
an anti-fossil fuel agenda developed a theory of radiative forcing to
explain how this trace gas could create runaway greenhouse warming.
They put that theory into general circulation computer models. Their
models then projected a continuous rapid rise in global temperatures
year after year. In the 1980s and 1990's the models seemed on track as
temperatures climbed. But in 1998 the warming stopped. By 2002 a rapid
cooling had begun. That cooling continues today. The computer proof has
failed. It has become clear the warming in the 80s and 90s was at the
peak of a solar cycle and now that the sun has gone very quiet, cooling
has gripped the planet. Yet the models continue to predict warming that
is not happening. There is no significant warming from CO2.
I am painfully aware that global warming has become a political
issue. I deeply regret that. The latest Gallup Poll documents the wide
divide on the issue: 66 percent of Republicans are of the opinion that
the claims of global warming are exaggerated; only 22 percent of
Democrats are of that position. I want to make very clear my conclusion
is in no way politically based.
I was a science reporter for ABC News in the 1970's when there was
a similar flurry of excitement about a coming Ice Age. Thankfully our
government and political parties didn't get involved so when the
science got things straightened out, the frenzy faded away.
Unfortunately, this time people with the anti fossil fuel agenda had
jumped on the global warming bandwagon and just won't let go. They have
calmed the rhetoric to climate change, but they are still all wrapped
up in cap and trade to tax our use of fossil fuels. This will do great
harm to our economy but do nothing of consequence to protect the
environment.
My advice to the National Park Service and the Subcommittee is: Do
nothing to mitigate man-made global warming or climate change, because
there is none. Reject the extremist agendas and concentrate on your
wonderful work protecting our natural resources and making natural
experiences available to us citizens of today and generations to
follow.
To any who have an interest in pursuing the sources behind my
scientific conclusions I provide a list of internet links with my
written testimony.
Again, thank you for allowing me to present my testimony and place
it into the record.
______
Links referenced in John Coleman's remarks
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://
www.ipcc.ch/
The Al Gore movie, ``An Inconvenient Truth: http://
www.climatecrisis.net/
An online article about the word ``deniers'' used to describe Global
Warming skeptics: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/
article/1782/
United Nations IPCC Chapter 9, the key chapter on CO2
Forcing: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-
wg1-chapter9.pdf
Natural Resources Defense Council Global Warming report: http://
www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fcons.asp
Michael Mann and the Hockey Stick Chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Michael_Mann_(scientist)
Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick's Paper refuting the Hockey Stick
Chart: http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.grl.2005.pdf
Stephen McIntyre's website: http://www.climateaudit.org
Ross McKitrick's website: http://www.uoguelph.ca/rmckitri/ross.html
NASA web pages on average annual temperatures: http://www.nasa.gov/
vision/earth/lookingatearth/earth_warm.html
Dr. Mayhay Khandekar and Joseph D'Aleo's post on the problems with the
NASA average temperature calculations: http://icecap.us/images/
uploads/PITFALLS.pdf
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.'s post on problems with calculation average global
temperatures:: http://climatesci.org/2008/02/08/an-error-in-
the-construction-of-a-single-global-average-surface-
temperature/
Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels paper detailing how observation points
change over time influences global average temperatures: http:/
/icecap.us/images/uploads/MM.JGRDec07.pdf
Anthony Watts discovers serious site problems with many official
weather observation stations in the United States and conducts
a national effort to survey every location: http://
surfacestations.org/
Dr. Ben Herman investigates questionable exaggerations in maximum
temperatures at locations where certain types of new
temperature sensors have been installed: http://climatesci.org/
2008/01/21/guest-weblog-by-professor-ben-herman-of-the-
university-of-arizona-maximum-temperature-trends/
The controversy about the influence of urban heat islands on global
temperatures is covered in the Wikipedia article at: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
Long term climate changes on Earth, resulting from natural causes,
primarily variations in the radiation received from the Sun are
detailed by D. Bruce Merrifield: http://
www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/global_warming_
and_solar_radia_1.html
I write about the solar influence on climate variations on Earth in my
brief The Force behind Climate Change: http://
images.bimedia.net/documents/Comments+on+Global+Warming.pdf
Roger Revelle, the Grandfather of Global Warming and the man who
inspired Al Gore, cautioned against alarmism from the carbon
dioxide build-up: http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/
40867912.html
Carbon Dioxide characterized as a pollutant, the force behind global
warming: http://worldcoolers.org/co2map/
Typical newspaper article decrying carbon dioxide build-up in the
atmosphere: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/
2003716817_carbon22.html
Union of Concerned Scientists page on carbon dioxide: http://
www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/vehicles_health/cars-and-trucks-
and-global-warming.html
The key Paper by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson and Willie Soon
that explains that Carbon Dioxide Forcing is not valid: http://
science
andpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/other/
Robinson_Soon.pdf
Another excellent Paper by Allan M.R, MacRae showing that Carbon
Dioxide is not the primary force in climate change: http://
icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
Dr. David Evans Paper showing that Carbon Dioxide does not cause Global
Warming: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Evans-
CO2DoesNotCauseGW.pdf
Alan Cheetham details the history of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change): http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/
GW_History.htm
Dr. John McLean details the lack of significant peer review of the IPCC
documents: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/
papers/originals/mclean/mclean_IPCC_review_final_9-5-07.pdf
Dr. Vincent Gray writes about his experience as a member of the IPCC:
http://nzclimatescience.net/
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Item
id=1
The report on the over 700 scientists who have spoken out in opposition
to global warming: http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/
index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.
Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10fe77b0-802a-23ad-4df1-fc38ed4f85e3
The website of the global warming debunkers petition with over 31
thousand signatures: http://www.petitionproject.org/
My webpage which contains numerous other documents and links: http://
www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner
______
Mr. Grijalva. Let me begin by asking Mr. Harja a couple of
questions.
And first of all, let me commend your organization and the
Governor's Association for the fine work that they've done in
the corridor initiative. And I think that initiative has kind
of focused a discussion on some regional aspects of this that I
think are part of this whole hearing and this whole discussion
about how the public lands interface with the issue of climate
change.
You talked about shared responsibility as part of where we
need to be. Can you give us a better idea of what resources and
tools the states are going to need in order to be able to
effectively deal with the initiative. And then, as a secondary
question, what should the role of the Federal government be in
the implementation of that initiative as well. Two-part
question.
Mr. Harja. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
Tools, a lot of it is fairly basic; things like computer
programs, GIS work. GIS is going to be very important to
mapping and then taking the layers you've mapped and then
comparing it to proposals for development. A number of states
aren't to that capacity yet.
It's also personnel to investigate. If Mr. Coleman is
correct and there is no issue, I guess there's no issue. But
nonetheless, the states say that things are moving. And we've
got to consider that. So, we've got to have the capacity to do
a little more research.
As I said, the data is there in some places. In some places
it's not. And so the capacity to get out and determine what the
situation is is crucial.
Monitoring. As a matter of fact, just as a quick aside, it
isn't just wildlife. Air quality is very important; and as
fires occur and the air quality is affected, monitoring
stations are vital. And one of them in Canyonlands National
Park is threatened, one of the air quality stations, measuring
stations. So, it's a big interrelated issue. And the states in
partnership with our Federal and NGO friends have to be able to
gather the data and interpret it and use it, no matter where it
scientifically leads.
In terms of our Federal partnerships, it's key that the
Federal government has got to be able to take the data and the
recommendations from the states and make significant use of
them. We worked hard in Utah, for example, on some resource
management plans. They used our data. That's what we need. We
need the agencies to understand the states have information. A
lot of it is coming from our partners in the NGO community. A
lot of it is generated ourselves. But they've got to consider
it. And they've got to work with us on it. Rather than just
assuming--I'm not speaking of the Parks Service necessarily.
Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and the Bureau of
Reclamation have to work on balance.
Hope that answers your questions.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. I know you have another
appointment that you're probably going to have to leave pretty
soon.
Mr. Harja. I'm OK for the moment.
Mr. Grijalva. OK. Well, just in case you do, let me turn to
Mrs. Napolitano and see if she has any questions for you. And
while we're talking with the other panelists, if you need to
leave----
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do have
some.
The Western Governor's Association, does it cover the same
area that the Bureau of Reclamation does in the 17 western
states?
Mr. Harja. I don't know the Bureau of Reclamation
boundaries. The Western Governor's Association is all the
states west of the Dakotas, Kansas. Does not include Oklahoma
or Texas--excuse me, it does include Texas but not Oklahoma.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. In page 2 you refer to much
information is missing, and this is the Western Governors'
Wildlife Council. Do you work with any of the agencies that
have been today mentioned or given in testimony?
Mr. Harja. Did I mention their names?
Mrs. Napolitano. No. Is the council working with all these
different agencies?
Mr. Harja. Yes. The council is a coordinating body. Members
of the council are heads of the wildlife agencies in the
western states, not all of them. And people like myself work
with Governors. So, we understand that the data is missing
because of State of Arizona informs us that they need better
data. Does that answer your question?
Mrs. Napolitano. Partly because you say that sometimes
other states offers differently.
Mr. Harja. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. So, some of these national organizations
may have some of the information that the states may have
available to them.
Mr. Harja. Correct.
Mrs. Napolitano. That's why I'm asking do you work with
them.
Mr. Harja. Oh, excuse me. OK. I understand your question.
Bird data, for example, is often gathered by NGO's. And we use
that in Utah, for example. The point is, as we shift forward
and try to protect these corridors, connectivity issues--even
climate change is part of that--we've got to find the best
data. We don't have it all right now. We have some good data.
We have some so-so data. It's got to improve. We've got to
gather it and then be able to use it. It comes from a lot of
sources.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK.
And then I think I'll just close with this one. But my
vital interest, of course, is watershed. And I'm not sure
whether the wildlife council actually includes into their area
of research and whatever the issue of water, protection of the
watershed, reforestation to be able to reestablish the
watershed after fires and, of course, education of the
visitors. And as was stated, there's a need for additional
funding to be able to do all of the above. And how are we
allowing cattle grazing, cabins to be able to provide leasing
funding, you know, visitor charges, all of that that might be
able to help expand the income to be able to do a little more
or beyond what's being done now?
Mr. Harja. That's a multiple question.
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes, it is.
Mr. Harja. See if I can remember.
Mrs. Napolitano. Because you're on limited time.
Mr. Harja. OK. Watersheds are key. I want to emphasize
that. Watersheds are key. And forests are often the headwaters
of those watersheds. In Utah we're losing the aspen community.
And efforts to retain that and enhance the aspen community are
very, very important. The loss of the spruce and other conifers
from beetles is huge.
But we focus in Utah, for example, on watersheds. We have a
whole funding source put together to try to protect watershed
sage-grouse areas, for example, are key. Other states have
similar efforts.
In terms of the council, of course, it's one point for the
states to understand what's going on around the West. Everybody
is working in different directions. Our colleagues from
Washington State have a whole different issue in watersheds and
timber cuts up there than Arizona does.
But endangered species that live in rivers, for example,
are very, very important. You recall we're attempting to move a
tailings pile near Moab, Utah, that might affect the Colorado
in your----
Mrs. Napolitano. I have some information on that.
Mr. Harja. I appreciate your efforts to help up there, from
my perspective.
So, that's kind of where we're started. And watershed is
the basis of the examining of the issues. And we go from there.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, part of that question goes to the
rivers. And, of course, you may not have the same problem as
the invasive species in some of the dams and some of the rivers
of quagga and zebra mussel infestation, in which the evolution
of this infestation is the warming of the waters, is my
understanding. So, we look at invasive species research and
development to be able to counter--or be able to begin to look
at--how you address some of those invasive species and where
you go from there.
Mr. Harja. You're absolutely right. We're watching a huge
increase in cheatgrass, having huge effects on fires. Various
weeds are moving by vehicles or such into high forests. It is
dramatically changing the aspect. And trying to get a hold of
that is also extremely important. I don't have all the answers
for you today, but that's one of the areas that the council
wants to work on in cooperation with our Federal agencies.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, with the infestation of zebra
mussels they're taking to having the boats washed off before
putting them into the water. Maybe we ought to wash tires.
Mr. Harja. I agree.
Mrs. Napolitano. I'm being facetious but, you know,
desperate times call for desperate measures.
Mr. Harja. Not only wash the vehicles, but they'd have to
let them dry.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
Mr. Harja, one more question.
Mr. Harja. Sure.
Mr. Grijalva. Within the 19 western states and the corridor
initiative, in a broader initiative, how does that fit in? You
know, the Dakotas, as wildlife and the range changes and----
Mr. Harja. Yes. And that's why the council isn't focused
necessarily on specific issues as much as trying to make sure
that the approaches around the West are the same. The Dakotas
are range land. Washington State has got huge stands of trees.
We can't focus at our level on those specific issues. What we
try to focus on is making sure that the states are approaching
it in a similar manner and make sure that the Federal agencies
are aware of that.
So, you know, we're focused on gathering data, for example,
to make sure that these standards for critical habitat are the
same. And you've got the Fish and Wildlife Service with ESA
critical habitat.
We're trying to make sure that corridors are identified
before it's too late, say, and then work with our Federal
agencies to protect them. It's a little higher level than, say,
working on trees and aspen regeneration. That's kind of from my
perspective. The council is focused on the higher one.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
Ms. Shaw, you talked about the likely need to alter
existing management practices, governances, to achieve the
adaptation objective. Could you expand a little bit about some
examples of what you think those changes should be?
Ms. Shaw. Yes. I think like the National Park Service, The
Nature Conservancy has areas of special resources across the
country and across the world that we're protecting because they
harbor species that are important or unique or they support
certain ecosystem processes that support human communities,
water and watershed.
It's clear that we've identified specific places in a
static climate that are important today. But under a changing
climate, resources, plants, and animals will move. And the
availability of water and the other important ecosystem
services from those places will also change. So, I think it's
really incumbent upon us to understand what those changes will
be and at what regional scale they will operate, how they will
change, and then work with partner agencies and partner NGO's
to ensure that we can protect them in the future.
I think that's going to mean not just government entities
but also private landowners to provide incentives to manage
land to protect the species that we care most about and that
serve as part of the public trust.
Mr. Grijalva. And it was mentioned I think earlier as one
of the comments by Mr. Jarvis--and now that I think about it
let me pose the question, Ms. Shaw. As we're trying to come to
grips with climate change in general, globally and both here
and in the United States, and also now as specifically with
regards to the public lands, with regards to the public lands
there's two kind of forces going on in terms of the policy
development. There is the extraction part of it, what we can
get out in terms of energy, what's in the ground. And now with
renewables, what's above the ground. And so the need to do
that--or the urgency to do that, to deal with the consequence
of climate change to some extent. And then the very valid point
that's been made over and over today and in the previous
hearing, a new way of looking at land use and planning in terms
of scenario planning, adaptation, restoration, corridor
linkages. How do you see that balance being struck?
Ms. Shaw. I think, depending on the resource that you're
talking about, whether that you're trying to protect or that
you're extracting, the balance will be struck in very different
ways. And as you know, right now in the Mojave Desert in
California--to meet the goal of 33 percent of all electricity
from renewable energies--we're looking at the development of
vast solar rays in the desert. These are important lands both
for meeting those renewable energy goals but also for
protecting species.
I think it's not about one or other, but it's about having
heightened coordination among the entities and the stakeholders
that matter, and making sure that we put in place a process
that can make sure that we are thinking about the needs of
meeting energy demands today and into the future and protecting
the natural resources, the species and plants and animals that
many of our public lands were designed to protect into the
future.
And I think that it does mean very considerable process.
Here in California there is underway by the state a Desert NCCP
process to try and get all the stakeholders to the table so we
can really look carefully at how we meet those renewable energy
goals but also design across the landscape in a way that allows
for adaptation of plants and species.
Mr. Grijalva. Defining that balance is going to be, I
think, a huge policy question.
Ms. Shaw. I think that's why we're all here. I think that
we're definitely in new territory. This is absolutely business
unusual. We are going to be using some of the same tools and
some of the same planning processes that we have before, but
with very different inputs and information and thinking very
differently on very longer time horizons about what we want to
see as outcomes so that we don't preclude the persistence of
any single plant or animal, and so that we can meet those
energy goals that are so important for curbing greenhouse gas
emissions.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
I think that question is going to be one that we're all
going to be deeply involved in, in how you define that balance.
Because it needs to be defined.
Ms. Shaw. That's right.
Mr. Grijalva. Because I think it's gone back and forth.
It's always been an either-or proposition. And we're kind of in
this state now where there has to be a definition of what that
balance means. Yes, it's going to be an interesting process.
Professor, it doesn't matter that the climate disturbances
that we're dealing with are caused by human activity. It just
doesn't matter. That's not part of the equation. But we do have
some challenges before us. We have the invading buffelgrass and
invasive species that you spoken about in other areas. We have
dying forests. You have crumbling coast, reduced snow packs no
matter what the cause. And don't we have to deal with these
challenges even if this other cause question is up there in the
air? I don't think it's in the air but it was introduced in the
air today.
Mr. Swetnam. Oh, I think it's a very good point.
Temperatures are warming up. The recent decade is the warmest
decade in the last century globally. And the Western United
States shows a very similar trend. As to whether or not the
warming in the Western United States is definitely attributable
to climate change is still an open question, but there is an
increasing body of evidence pointing to global warming as the
cause of the droughts and the warming temperatures we're seeing
in the Western United States.
Beyond that, though, we are seeing extraordinary warming
trends and we're seeing responses to it. Wildfires are
increasing. There's a very clear connection between droughts,
warm temperatures, and increasing size and severity of the
wildfires. And likewise, bark beetle outbreaks and dying trees
are increasing across the west. And the evidence is compelling,
very compelling, that this is related to the warming
temperatures.
Now, this is all happening in the context of landscapes
that we live in. And we've got increasing populations and
increasing demands on the water resources, in particular, in
these place. So, we have to deal with it.
And it's very likely that the warming is going to continue
and it's going to get worse. So, this question about whether
it's human caused or not, we can debate about that endlessly, I
believe. And I think the evidence is overwhelming that it is
largely driven by humans, and we need to get on with dealing
with it.
And I think that's why we're here. This hearing is actually
to talk about the impacts of the current climate changes that
we're seeing, the warming and the likely warming in the future.
Mr. Grijalva. Could you just for a second respond to that
balance question that I asked, a little bit ago, about how you
strike that balance, your idea.
Mr. Swetnam. Balance between dealing with energy----
Mr. Grijalva. The need to take energy and the need to
balance, restore, and protect.
Mr. Swetnam. Yes, I think that is indeed going to be a very
critical issue is how we move forward with adapting our
environments to live in them better and to develop energy
resources to deal with the carbon issue. This is another
balance issue regarding forests restoration, for example.
Here's a key balance issue. As we need to move forward to
forests that are more open and have less fuels in them, we need
to do more prescribed burning. And prescribed burning actually
emits carbon to the atmosphere. We need to better understand
the balance of carbon in our ecosystems in the restored state
or in the current state versus what we might get with wildfires
that run through these forests and totally destroy them and
convert them to grasslands or shrub fields. So, what kind of
carbon do we get in our forest ecosystem that's going to enter
into a grassland or a shrub field, which is maintaining it as a
forest?
So, there are going to be balance questions like this all
along. The energy issues are how we develop solar energy in the
deserts, for example. There's going to be balance issues on how
we move in restoration to maintain the right balance of carbon,
carbon sequestration in our forests.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
If I may, Mr. Coleman, let me ask you the same question
that I asked the professor. Does it--does it matter the climate
disturbance we're seeing weren't caused by human activity? And
the same challenges I talked about, invasive species, dying
forests, crumbling coasts, disappearing aquifers, reduced snow
packs, these are still challenges that we have to deal with. Do
you agree with that or----
Mr. Coleman. I watched all of this very carefully, and of
course we need to deal with it. And 160 years of pretty good
weather records, pretty good, we can identify 11 periods of
drought in the Western U.S. They have occurred irregardless of
mankind's activities. The worst drought, five-year drought, was
1929, 1934. The most severe in California where we are today,
and my home, occurred in 1976 and '77. We have had a drought in
recent years. I'm happy to report that it is now--nature is now
beginning to solve that drought. The drought has greatly eased.
We had 102 percent of normal snow pack and the watershed of the
Colorado River----
Mr. Grijalva. So, do we let it run its course, this
drought?
Mr. Coleman. Well, I think we don't have a choice. Because
we're not in control. Nature is in control.
Mr. Grijalva. There's nothing we can do to mitigate----
Mr. Coleman. Our problem, of course, is getting enough
water to drink. And with 20 million people now living in
Southern California, depending on the snow pack of the Sierra
and the Colorado River, we are way overtaxing our resources.
And this is a very serious matter. And forest fires are a very
serious matter for us. I was evacuated from my home because of
one, which came two blocks from me. So I'm very, very well
aware and very conscious of this.
I think there are a lot of things we're in charge of, but
one of them isn't climate. Unfortunately, from our point of
view, I guess, we can't stop droughts. We can't stop El Ninos.
We are currently in what's known as a PDO, a Pacific Decadal
Oscillation. The sun has gone very quiet. We've hardly had a
sun spot. The sun's the quietest it's been in a hundred years.
The Pacific Ocean has gone into a very cool mode. The Pacific
Ocean, the biggest ocean on planet Earth, controls our climate
of the United States. And our climate is definitely cooling.
Mr. Grijalva. Well let----
Mr. Coleman. And we have to deal with that.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you for going beyond the question that
I asked.
Mr. Coleman. Oh, I'm sorry, sir. But thank you for asking.
Mr. Grijalva. Let me turn to Mrs. Napolitano for any
questions she may have.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, Mr. Chair, I know that we have
another panel. But there are some issues--not issues, but
questions that I had.
For Mr. Swetnam, on page 7 you talk about developing--let's
see--education. And any time I want to make any message viable,
I go to school kids. Because they take the message home and
they're the future, they're the ones who need to understand how
that would be impacted. So when you talk about the research
learning centers, engaging people, they can play a key role.
Are you going to be able to gear it toward children also? And
maybe even put them on cable as informational, educational, et
cetera. We miss a lot. We educate adults. What happened in
educating our children, because they are the future.
Mr. Swetnam. Yes, of course. As a university professor, I
very much appreciate the educational needs and emphasis. And I
think that the Park Services Research and Learning Centers are
great opportunities to engage the public and help them
understand ecological variability and climate variability and
climate change. I was very encouraged to hear Jon Jarvis'
comments with this regard and the focus of the Park Service in
coming here on the research learning centers. And not only
those places, but the parks in general. Virtually every park.
Most parks should have some interpretative materials and
displays and educational opportunities.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, I'm sorry, my time is going to be
very limited. But I guess maybe a suggestion would be, because
I deal a lot with water agencies, and they've taken to doing
Earth Day celebrations where they teach, they bring in
families. And they begin to have hands-on displays where
children can actually feel, hear, see the things that you have
on posters and on handouts. Water districts at the local levels
adjacent to parks areas, maybe they should be engaged in being
able to have continuum, if you will, of information for the
youngsters and their families. And this is just one of the
things that I've learned, if I want to engage parents I engage
the children first.
Mr. Swetnam. Yes, the hands-on activities especially are
most effective.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
There's several other questions, but I think I'll defer
with the Chair and I'll put them in writing.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
And let me thank the panelists. I don't have any follow-
ups.
There's some specific written questions that we will
forward to you. And if you could get them back to the committee
so we could make them part of the record. Thank you very much.
It's very much appreciated.
Mr. Grijalva. If I could invite the next panel, please.
Thank you very much, and welcome. Let me begin with Mr.
Robert Keiter, Director of Wallace Stegner Center for Land,
Resources, and Environment, University of Utah. Welcome, and
thank you for coming. I am looking forward to your comments.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT B. KEITER, DIRECTOR, WALLACE STEGNER CENTER
FOR LAND, RESOURCES, AND THE ENVIRONMENT, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH,
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
Mr. Keiter. Thank you very much, Chairman Grijalva and
Congresswoman Napolitano, for the opportunity to testify today
before the Subcommittee on the role of National Parks in
combating climate change.
As the Chairman noted, I'm Bob Keiter. I serve as the
Wallace Stegner Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of
the Wallace Stegner at the University of Utah, the S.J. Quinney
College of Law.
I'm appearing here today in my individual professional
capacity, and my testimony is based on 25 years of research and
teaching on public land law and policy.
Our diverse National Parks System features an incredible
array of ecosystems, many of which are already being impacted
by climate change, as are the surrounding landscapes. As others
have chronicled, these impacts include the rapid loss of the
iconic glaciers at Glacier National Park, the gradual
disappearance of the namesake Joshua trees in our neighboring
national park today. The list goes on. Although these problems
are serious, our national parks can and should play several
important roles in understanding climate change and responding
to it; namely as baseline study areas, biodiversity refuges,
the critical cores of larger ecosystems, and as carbon storage
sites.
To play these roles effectively, however, the national
parks must be fully and adequately protected. Without
sufficient legal protection the national parks and their myriad
wildlife, water, and other resources are at increased risk.
Climate change will also impact the surrounding communities
that rely on national parks as anchors for their economic
welfare.
Given these risks, we must not only protect existing parks
and their resources but also expand the National Park System to
ensure that we can adapt to climate change and mitigate its
effect. In short, we must regard and manage our national parks
as parts of the larger landscapes that sustains the
biodiversity and ecosystem services that are vital to our
society. And I think several of the witnesses earlier today
have made basically that same point.
My testimony will focus then on two key climate change
adaptation mitigation concerns. One, how can we better protect
the national parks, and two, how might we expand the National
Park System.
And in focusing on these questions, I don't mean to
diminish the importance of the recent legislative proposals
that I know the committee is well familiar with, including the
recent Waxman-Markey discussion draft. I view instead my ideas
as complimentary to and intended to strengthen several of the
proposals that are part of this discussion legislation.
Numerous studies over the past several decades have
documented that the parks face serious environmental challenges
that can be traced to developments or activities occurring on
adjacent Federal, state, tribal, and private lands. And these
impacts today are being exacerbated by climate change. They
include threats from oil and gas development on nearby Federal
and state lands. Too many roads and too much unregulated off-
road vehicle activity in sensitive locations, and ill-planned
subdivisions intruding on critical wildlife habitat, migration
corridors, and other sensitive areas which can either
individually or cumulatively destabilize vital park ecosystems,
rendering them both less resilient and adaptable.
The important lesson and the one that climate changes
reinforce is clear, we must begin to plan and manage at a
landscape or ecosystem scale if we are to conserve and restore
our ecologically critical Federal lands and resources.
The parks at this scale serve as the critical cores of the
larger ecosystems and the interconnected watersheds, airsheds,
and wildlife habitats.
The existing law, as I've explained in my written
testimony, is not adequate to meet the challenge of landscape
level planning and management. It doesn't ensure meaningful
interagency coordination and consultation which several
witnesses both today and at your earlier hearing have referred
to as critical to address climate change. It also does not
necessarily establish clear-cut management priorities
consistent with the climate change challenge. So, we need to
strengthen and put some real teeth into the coordination
provisions that are in existing law, or there's little evidence
or hope that we will see better or more consistent coordination
either at the planning stage or the project decision-making
stage that the Federal agencies go through.
My first recommendation then, Congress should adopt a more
detailed interagency coordination mandate that would apply to
all Federal land management agencies, not only making
interagency coordination efforts transparent as a mandatory
part of agency decision records, but also making it enforceable
in court. This would require the agencies during their planning
processes and whenever contemplating an action with significant
climate change implications to consult with the National Park
Service by preparing an interagency coordination statement
documenting the collaboration effort, potential impacts and
mitigation strategies, and responses to any expressed park
concerns regarding climate change.
Congress could go further. It could put additional teeth
into this idea of improved interagency coordination by adopting
a new consistency requirement that would require consistency
between the Park Service's climate change plans, and the
management goals of other Federal agencies on adjacent lands,
perhaps using a model derived from the Coastal Zone and
Management Act Consistency Provisions. If even more teeth are
necessary, the No Feasible Alternative concept that is part of
the Transportation Act could also be utilized to address and
promote consistency and coordination.
Further step, the adoption of a model drawing upon the
Surface Mine Control And Reclamation Act that would incorporate
an unsuitability provision into the Federal Land Management
legislation, empowering the Secretary of the Interior, upon
petition, to designate lands adjacent to national parks or
other protected areas as unsuitable for mining, logging, road-
building, and other intensive activities that could exacerbate
climate change challenges.
Some other thoughts regarding improving Federal land
management efforts, the adoption of new substantive standards;
perhaps an explicit biodiversity conservation mandate for all
of the Federal land management agencies, or an ecosystem
conservation mandate as an alternative.
Strengthening the National Park Services authority to
respond to activities occurring outside its boundaries would
also be helpful to that agency to promote coordination on
adjacent lands.
We need to also, in addressing this problem at the
landscape scale, to involve the states, the tribes, and private
landowners that are located near or adjacent to the parks.
Congress should make full use of its conditional spending power
to do this, to seek to induce and encourage meaningful
landscape-scale planning with mitigation and adaptation
strategies, perhaps by conditioning Federal funds to these
entities, contingent upon their coordinating their land use and
transportation plans and economic development efforts with
larger regional climate change planning efforts that are being
undertaken by the Federal agencies.
If I can make a couple of other points, moving off of
current management of the national parks and surrounding
Federal lands, and address the question of expansion of the
National Park System. That too, it seems to me, would be
helpful in order to protect and restore vital landscapes,
including critical wildlife migration corridors, important
watersheds, and other sensitive locations. The conventional
approaches are certainly available, and the committee is well
aware of them; the designation of new parks, monuments, or
boundary adjustments. Let me suggest a new approach for
expanding the park system. And that is to target currently
damaged landscapes for inclusion into the system following a
period of restoration.
Most scientists, including several who testified both today
and at your earlier hearing, have endorsed ecosystem
restoration as an important strategy for mitigating climate
change impacts as a historical matter. As our regional director
Jon Jarvis noted earlier, the Park Service National Park System
has experience with incorporating restored--incorporating and
restoring damaged lands into the system, the Great Smokey
Mountains, Shenandoah, Redwoods, serving as examples.
Adding these--adding damage but restorable lands to the
park system will require us to begin thinking about national
parks from a longer-term perspective. But climate change is
forcing us to adopt that strategy--or that perspective, excuse
me. One strategy for accomplishing this park expansion
restoration idea would be to think of it as a two-step
approach, first setting aside the targeted lands for protection
and restoration, perhaps as new national restoration areas, and
then later seeking national park or another appropriate
protective status once the landscape has been repaired.
An alternative expansion approach would be to adopt a new
landscape overlay designation, perhaps something like natural
heritage areas or landscapes that would knit together an array
of contiguous Federal lands that cover particular sensitive or
vital landscapes such as the Greater Yellowstone area or the
Greater Grand Canyon region or the Crown of the Continent
ecosystem.
For these special climate change mitigation landscapes
Congress would need to establish new more protective management
standards to protect the area's wildlife watersheds and other
resources from warming pressures.
A related concern already addressed today but let me add my
endorsement of it is the potential need for new Federal
wildlife corridor legislation or at least some congressional
direction and support for the wildlife corridor concept that
has now been endorsed strongly by the Western Governor's
Association.
Any Federal legislation could be modeled after the National
Trail System Act of 1968, which involves Federal and state
officials in making designation decisions and is likewise
sensitive to private landowner concerns.
To conclude let me note that these proposals raise
sensitive political bureaucratic interagency concerns. And
although some progress toward more coordinated landscape scale
management has been made, the need for institutionalized
coordination and consultation arrangements cannot be overlooked
if we are going to effectively address the climate change
challenge. Funding for these proposed initiatives might come
from new revenues generated by a cap and trade system or a
Federal carbon tax. Put simply, nothing less than significant
strengthening of our existing laws and strategic expansion of
our National Park System will provide the means necessary to
mitigate the impact of a warming climate on our precious
natural resources and sustain the resilient capacities of our
vital ecosystems.
Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Keiter follows:]
Statement of Robert B. Keiter, J.D., Wallace Stegner Distinguished
Professor of Law, Director, Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources
and the Environment, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law,
Salt Lake City, Utah
Chairman Grijalva and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify on the role of national parks in combating
climate change. I am Bob Keiter and I am the Wallace Stegner Professor
of Law, a Distinguished University Professor, and Director of the
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment at the
University of Utah's S.J, Quinney College of Law. In addition, I serve
on the boards for several organizations: the Sonoran Institute, the
Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, the University of Utah's
Institute for Clean and Secure Energy, the University of Wyoming's
Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, and the
University of Montana's Public Land and Resources Law Review. My
appearance here today, however, is not on behalf of any organization,
but rather to present my ideas on the role that the national parks can
play in addressing our nation's climate change challenge and how
Congress might best ensure the parks can play that role. My testimony
is based upon 25 years of research and teaching on public land law and
policy, which includes four books and numerous book chapters and
journal articles on these topics, several of which address national
parks, climate change-related concerns, and regional or ecosystem-based
management.
Climate Change and the National Parks
The American national park system consists of over 390 units
covering nearly 80 million acres, with units in 49 of the 50 states and
several territories. Our large and diverse national park system
features an incredible array of distinct ecosystems, many of which are
already being impacted by climate change. As others have chronicled,
these impacts include: the rapid loss of iconic glaciers at Glacier
National Park; the gradual disappearance of the namesake Joshua trees
from Joshua Tree National Park; the unprecedented spread of insect-
caused diseases that are devastating forests in the Great Smoky
Mountains, Yellowstone, and elsewhere; and the loss of coral reefs in
Biscayne and Virgin Islands national parks. Very few doubt that these
warming impacts will affect other national parks and irreparably alter
the park flora and fauna as well as vital ecosystem processes with
repercussions that will extend well beyond the boundary lines.
Our national parks can potentially play several important roles in
understanding climate change and responding to it. First, as legally
protected and relatively intact natural areas, the national parks can
provide a baseline for understanding and studying how climate change is
impacting the natural world, particularly the various species and
ecosystems that can be found in the parks. Second, given their
protected status, the national parks can offer a refuge for species
that are--or might be--displaced from their native habitat by a
changing climate. Third, as part of larger federal public lands
complexes, the national parks may play a key role in promoting
resilience across the landscape and sustaining vital ecosystems and
ecological processes that transcend conventional boundary lines.
Fourth, as relatively undisturbed sanctuaries with extensive forest and
grass cover, many national parks can serve as a carbon storage
repository and thus help reduce the amount of CO2 escaping
into the atmosphere. The national parks, simply put, give us the
ability to better understand, mitigate, and adapt to a changing
climate.
However, to play these roles effectively in our warming world, the
national parks must be fully and adequately protected. Without adequate
legal protection, the national parks are at risk: park species can be
lost or displaced; wildlife habitat can be destroyed or altered;
critical cross-boundary migration corridors that can be blocked or
fragmented; water quality can be degraded, while vital water supplies
can be diminished; air quality can suffer deterioration; park forests
and grasslands can be put at increased risk from invasive species,
diseases, and wildfires; historic buildings and other cultural sites
can be lost or damaged; and the list goes on. Any or all of these
impacts can also adversely affect park visitor experiences and
visitation levels, which will inevitably affect surrounding communities
that so often rely on national parks as anchors for their economic
welfare. The unambiguous realities of these risks present powerful
reasons not only to protect existing parks and resources, but also to
expand national parks in order to ensure we can adapt to climate change
and mitigate its effects. In short, we must regard and manage our
national parks as parts of the larger landscape that sustains the
biodiversity and ecosystem services that are vital to our society.
I will therefore focus my testimony on two key concerns that should
be addressed if we are to effectively mitigate and adapt to the climate
change threat: 1) how to better protect the national parks; and 2) how
to expand the national park system. In doing so, I do not mean to
overlook or diminish the importance of recent proposals designed to
address climate change, such as those found in the Dingell-Boucher
discussion draft, which was circulated in the 110th Congress. The
natural resource provisions in that draft legislation--including new
natural resource adaptation plans, a natural resource adaptation
climate change fund, and other innovative provisions--would provide
comprehensive guidance and assistance to the federal and state agencies
charged with sustaining our public lands and resources, and they merit
serious consideration on those grounds. My recommendations, though, are
more specific to the national parks and supplement several provisions
found in these earlier proposals. In that spirit, what follows are
proposed changes or additions to existing law designed to enhance the
role of national parks as key climate change laboratories and
sanctuaries, and thus ensure that these benefits extend across the
landscape.
Protecting the National Parks
During the past three decades, numerous studies have documented
that the national parks face serious environmental challenges that can
be traced to developments or activities occurring on adjacent federal,
state, and private lands. See, e.g., U.S. Gen. Accounting Office,
Activities Outside Park Borders Have Caused Damage to Resources and
Will Likely Cause More (1994); National Park System Advisory Board,
Rethinking the National Parks for the 21st Century 5-6 (2001). These
threatening activities include oil and gas development on nearby
federal and state lands, too many roads and too much
unregulated off road vehicle activity in sensitive locations, and ill-
planned subdivisions intruding on critical wildlife habitat, migration
corridors, and other sensitive areas. In the face of a warming climate,
which is already stressing national park resources, these external
developments or activities--either individually or cumulatively--can
destabilize vital park ecosystems, rendering them less resilient and
undermining their utility as baseline study areas, biodiversity
refuges, or carbon storage sites. The important lesson--and one that
climate change has reinforced--is clear: We must begin to plan and
manage at a landscape or ecosystem scale if we are to conserve and
restore our ecologically critical federal lands and resources. At this
scale, the national parks serve as the critical core of larger
ecosystems that contain interconnected watersheds, air sheds, and
wildlife habitats.
The initial question is whether the existing law is adequate to
meet the challenge of landscape level planning and management sensitive
to the national parks. At a superficial level, several legal provisions
seem to offer important protection to the national parks; but upon
closer inspection, these laws do not fully protect park lands and
resources, and they are decidedly not designed to address the
additional challenges associated with climate change. The amended
National Parks Organic Act instructs the National Park Service to
conserve its scenic and wildlife resources in an ``unimpaired
[condition] for the enjoyment of future generations'' and to protect
``the high public value and integrity of the National Park System.'' 16
U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1,
1a-1. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires all federal
agencies to prepare an environmental analysis before taking any action
that will significantly affect the human environment, but these
requirements are merely procedural and do not require the agency to
make environmentally protective decisions. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 4332(2)(C).
The Endangered Species Act does protect federally listed species and
their critical habitat, but it only applies when listed species are
present, and it has not always been rigorously enforced. 16 U.S.C.
Sec. 1531 et seq. While these laws compel the Park Service to
protectively manage its own lands, they do not compel the same level of
protective management on adjacent federal lands, at least not unless
listed endangered species are present.
A very real problem, then, is how management priorities are set and
implemented on adjacent federal lands, most often neighboring national
forest or BLM lands. The Forest Service and the BLM manage their lands
under a multiple-use standard, which frequently means mining, logging,
grazing, and industrial level recreation. 16 U.S.C. Sec. 528; 43 U.S.C.
Sec. 1732. On these lands, the National Forest Management Act (NFMA)
and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) contain
provisions requiring the Forest Service and the BLM to coordinate their
resource planning and project-level decisions with other federal
agencies, which would include adjoining national parks. 16 U.S.C.
Sec. 1604(a); 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1712(c)(9). But these coordination
provisions have not proven enforceable, and they are frequently
overlooked to achieve other multiple-use priorities. Recent reports
indicate that the BLM completely disregarded an earlier interagency
consultation agreement with the Park Service in order to expedite the
sale of extensive oil and gas leases near Arches, Canyonlands, and
Dinosaur national park units in Utah. Similar problems are evident at
Grand Canyon National Park, where the Forest Service is moving ahead to
permit uranium mining on national forest lands adjacent to the park,
despite the Park Service's persistent objection. Moreover, the federal
laws cited above have little or no application on adjacent state or
private lands, which can be equally important to maintaining ecological
integrity and resilience on the broader landscape.
In the case of adjacent federal lands, it is frequently suggested
that better coordination or more consultation between the national
parks and other federal land managers should sufficiently protect the
parks from possible harm. Indeed, several witnesses at the
Subcommittee's March 3, 2009, hearing on climate change and the federal
lands offered interagency coordination as a potential solution for the
climate change problem. In my view, unless federal law is strengthened
to put some real teeth into existing coordination provisions, there is
little evidence or hope that we will see better or more consistent
coordination among the federal land management agencies. In fact,
voluntary, non-binding interagency coordination gains made during one
administration are likely to fade during the next one, as we witnessed
with the Bush administration's utter disregard of the Clinton
administration's ecosystem management initiatives.
Moreover, coordination is inherently complex. To be effective, it
must occur at two separate levels: the planning level where broad scale
resource management plans are developed, and the project level where
individual project proposals are assessed and ultimately approved. In
the case of climate change, a coordinated landscape level planning
process is crucial; it is at this level that the agencies have the
opportunity to set resource management priorities and mitigation
strategies to address sensitive resource issues. But the Supreme Court
has ruled that resource management plans are not generally subject to
judicial review and that these plans ordinarily do not impose legally
binding obligations. See Ohio Forestry Association v. Sierra Club, 523
U.S. 726 (1998); Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S.
55 (2004). (These court decisions, I should note, suggest that the
Dingell-Boucher federal natural resource adaptation plans may not be
enforceable or judicially reviewable, unless Congress specifies
otherwise.) An effective coordination strategy for climate change
purposes must therefore ensure meaningful and accountable coordination
at both the planning and project levels.
So, as an antidote to climate change, how might Congress go about
imposing meaningful and enforceable interagency coordination or
consultation obligations on the public land agencies? Several related
options are available. (Though the following options are framed in
general terms, the goal in each instance is to promote landscape scale
management to meet the climate change challenge.)
Congress should adopt a new and more detailed interagency
coordination mandate that would apply to all federal land management
agencies, not only making interagency coordination efforts a mandatory
part of agency decision records, but also making it enforceable in
court. This would require federal land management agencies, during
their planning processes and whenever contemplating an action with
significant climate change implications for nearby national parks, to
consult with the National Park Service by preparing an interagency
coordination statement documenting the collaboration effort, potential
impacts and mitigation strategies, and responses to any expressed
national park concerns. The idea is to require transparency through
specific written documentation of the consultation as part of the
planning or project decision process to ensure that climate change
concerns are addressed and mitigation commitments are adopted. With
judicial enforcement lurking in the background, the agencies would be
accountable for their coordination efforts, which should ensure more
meaningful and better interagency collaboration.
This interagency coordination statement could be readily
incorporated into normal planning and NEPA processes, or it could be a
separate stand-alone document. It might be implemented by Congress by
including this requirement as part of each agency's climate change
adaptation plan, or by amending NEPA to set forth this new requirement,
or by instructing the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) to add a
new interagency coordination statement requirement to its NEPA rules.
Or Congress could amend the organic legislation governing the Forest
Service, the BLM, and other agencies to incorporate these new
interagency coordination statement requirements into the existing
coordination provisions found in the National Forest Management Act,
the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and other legislation.
Although such an interagency coordination statement would impose only a
new procedural--rather than a substantive--requirement on the agencies,
judicial enforcement of the NEPA EIS procedural requirements has had
the salutary effect of ensuring that action agencies give full
consideration to the environmental implications of their decisions. If
the courts were instructed to similarly enforce an explicit interagency
coordination process, then it should yield similar results.
Congress might put additional teeth into a new interagency
coordination or cooperation mandate by requiring ``consistency''
between NPS climate change plans or management goals and those of
adjacent federal agencies. The model for this type of provision is the
Coastal Zone Management Act, which requires that federal agency actions
affecting coastal zone lands or waters must be consistent with the
state coastal zone plan. 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1456(c). Under this standard,
for example, the courts have found that industrial pipeline projects
and off-shore energy lease decisions require a ``consistency'' review
and the consideration of alternatives to the proposal. Millennium
Pipeline Co., L.P. v. Gutierrez, 424 F.Supp.2d 168 (D.D.C. 2006);
California v. Norton, 311 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. 2002). The trigger for a
``consistency'' review might be the potential ``impairment'' of
national park lands or resources, which would draw upon the protective
standard already in the National Parks Organic Act. Moreover, state
natural resource and wildlife agencies might be subjected to the same
consistency standards as a condition to receiving federal grant funds
to support their planning efforts and management programs.
If even more teeth are needed, Congress might prohibit intensive
development activities on public lands adjacent to national parks
unless there is no feasible alternative to the proposal and climate
change concerns can be adequately mitigated. This proposal draws upon a
similar provision found in Section 4(f) of the Transportation Act,
which prohibits new transportation projects that require the use of
public parks or other sensitive lands unless there is ``no prudent or
feasible alternative to using that land'' and ``all possible planning
to minimize harm to the park'' has been undertaken. 49 U.S.C.
Sec. 303(c). Under this provision, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
blocked construction of a new airport adjacent to Glen Canyon National
Recreation Area in southern Utah, concluding that the responsible
agencies had not adequately considered how airport noise would impact
the park visitor experience. National Parks and Conservation Ass'n v.
Federal Aviation Administration, 998 F.2d 1523 (10th Cir. 1993). A
similar type of statutory provision that more broadly protected
national parks from adjacent or nearby development projects with
significant climate change impacts would help maintain the integrity of
park ecosystems, wildlife, and other vital resources, which are key to
mitigating climate change impacts.
Alternatively, Congress could promote consistency in the management
of federal lands by prohibiting unsuitable or inappropriate development
on sensitive lands adjacent to national parks. To do so, Congress could
adopt new ``unsuitability'' legislation empowering the Secretary of the
Interior, upon petition, to designate lands adjacent to national parks
(or other protected areas) as ``unsuitable'' for mining, logging, road
building, or other intensive activities that could exacerbate climate
change problems. This approach could be modeled on the
``unsuitability'' provision in the Surface Mining Control and
Reclamation Act. 30 U.S.C. Sec. 1272; Utah International v. Dept. of
the Interior, 553 F.Supp. 872 (D. Utah 1982). As such, it would be
quite similar to the Secretary's FLPMA-based withdrawal power; it could
be made revocable, either by the Secretary or by Congress, and its
exercise could be governed by precise standards to protect against
possible abuse.
Whichever route is chosen, the ultimate goal is to promote
meaningful and coordinated landscape scale management that is
responsive to the climate change problem. This can only be done by
ensuring that agency coordination efforts are documented and truly
transparent, and that the agencies are fully accountable. To do so,
clear standards and procedures must be set forth to govern interagency
coordination and consultation, and these new coordination requirements
must be enforceable in the courts through citizen suits.
Beyond improving interagency coordination, Congress should consider
adopting new substantive standards designed to improve federal resource
management at the landscape scale as a means to address climate change
concerns. Because the loss of biodiversity is a key concern among
climate scientists, Congress should legislatively clarify that
biodiversity conservation at the landscape scale is a priority
responsibility in agency planning and management decisions. Although
some federal public land agencies already have statutory biodiversity
conservation mandates (namely for the national forests and the national
wildlife refuges), these mandates are not entirely clear (particularly
in the case of the national forests), and they can present enforcement
problems. The problem is most plainly illustrated by the Bush
administration's revisions to the national forest planning rules, which
essentially deleted enforceable biodiversity conservation requirements,
giving the Forest Service near carte blanche discretion in this
important area. A new explicit biodiversity conservation mandate,
perhaps linked with maintaining and restoring sustainable ecosystems,
would give this key aspect of climate change strategy the prominence
that it merits on the federal climate agenda. This might be done by
noting a connection with the Endangered Species Act, namely that an
effective biodiversity conservation program should reduce the number of
species that will require listing under the ESA and thus ultimately
help preserve the land management agencies' decision making autonomy.
It also might be done by establishing new federal ecosystem management
requirements applicable across the public lands.
In addition, given the important role of the national parks in
addressing climate change, Congress should consider strengthening the
National Park Service's authority under the Organic Act, particularly
its ability to respond effectively to cross-boundary problems. As has
been frequently documented, the Park Service has historically been
reluctant to assert itself outside its boundary line, regularly
questioning whether it has any responsibility or authority over
external matters. Most commentators agree that the Park Service does
have a responsibility to protect park lands and resources from
threatening activities occurring outside the parks, a view captured in
the National Parks Organic Act and the so-called Redwood amendments to
that act. 16 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1, 1a-1. The DOI Solicitor has read these
statutory provisions to vest agency officials with this protective
responsibility, concluding that the relevant law ``infuses the
Secretary's decisions with a concern for park values and purposes, and
signals caution where [these]--could be threatened.'' Options Regarding
Applications for Hardrock Mineral Prospecting Permits on Acquired Lands
Near a Unit of the National Park System, M #36993, at 23 (April 16,
1998). The Park Service's Management Policies likewise acknowledge that
``activities proposed for adjacent lands may significantly affect park
programs, resources, and values,'' and that park officials ``will use
all available tools to protect park resources and values from
unacceptable impacts.'' National Park Service, Management Policies 1.6
(2006). Nonetheless, given the potential devastating implications of
climate change and the important role that the national parks must play
in addressing it, Congress should give the agency some explicit
authority outside its boundaries, perhaps through a mandatory
consultation process whenever adjacent activities or developments might
impair park resources.
To effectively address climate change at the landscape scale, state
and private lands located near or adjacent to national parks cannot be
overlooked. Federal law, however, has little impact on these lands, and
most state and private landowners will resist new federal regulatory
mandates. The alternative, therefore, is to use Congress's conditional
spending power to induce changes in state and private landowner
behavior that will redound to the benefit of the national parks and
encourage landscape scale planning with meaningful mitigation and
adaptation strategies. This can be done by making federal funds
available to the states and local communities contingent on them
coordinating their land use and transportation plans or economic
development efforts with the regional climate change planning efforts
undertaken by the adjacent federal land management agencies. The
important point is to promote consistency between state and local
planning efforts and those occurring at the federal level, while
developing coordinated landscape scale mitigation and adaptation
strategies keyed to regional climate change concerns. A similar
incentive-based approach should be employed to bring tribal governments
into these coordinated planning and mitigation efforts.
Expanding the National Park System
To address the risks and uncertainties inherent in climate change,
Congress should also consider expanding the national park system to
ensure that sufficient space is available to make the adaptations and
mitigations that will be required. By expanding the national park
system, Congress can protect and restore vital landscapes that
encompass critical wildlife migration corridors, sensitive watersheds,
or other locations that are deemed essential to meeting the climate
change challenge. Not only would strategic park boundary expansions or
the addition of new units enhance the conservation and scientific value
of the existing park system, but it would also enhance carbon storage
opportunities.
Congress is, of course, quite familiar with the conventional
legislative approaches that have been used to expand the national park
system. These include the creation of new national parks, national
monuments, national recreation areas, national heritage areas, and the
like, as well as boundary adjustments to existing national park units.
Over the years, Congress has shown a willingness to reconfigure park
boundaries and to add new units on nearby federal lands with a view
toward creating more ecologically manageable park units, as illustrated
by the California Desert legislation. Congress can--and should--give
serious consideration to using these conventional strategies to enable
the national park system to effectively meet the climate change
challenge. Indeed, with reconfigured boundary lines and a more
ecologically sensitive management structure in place, the Park Service
and other federal land management agencies should be better able to
employ the adaptive management strategies necessary to address the
attendant risks and uncertainties that climate change portends.
A new approach to expanding the national park system that Congress
should consider is targeting currently damaged landscapes for inclusion
into the system following a period of restoration. Most scientists,
including several who testified at the Subcommittee's March 3, 2009,
hearing on federal lands, have endorsed ecosystem restoration as an
important strategy for mitigating climate change impacts. As a
historical matter, several of the eastern national parks, including
Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah, were created from previously
logged, mined, and farmed landscapes, and today they represent
important components of the national park system. The same is true of
the eastern and midwestern national forests, many of which had been
devastated by over logging before they were reacquired by the federal
government during the early 20th century under the Weeks Act; today
these forest lands are fully restored and provide an array of resources
and benefits to a large segment of our populace, and their role will
only become increasingly important as temperatures continue rising.
Adding damaged but restorable lands to the national park system
will require us to begin thinking about national parks from a longer
term perspective, but climate change is forcing us to adopt that
perspective. As an agency that takes prides in its environmental
management skills and one that his historical experience restoring
damaged landscapes, the National Park Service should relish the
challenge of bringing a damaged ecosystem back to life, not to mention
the management efficiencies that would be realized when adjacent lands
are added to an existing national park unit. One strategy for
accomplishing this park expansion restoration idea would be to think of
it as a two step approach; first setting aside the targeted lands for
protection and restoration, perhaps as new national restoration areas,
and then later seeking national park or another appropriate protective
status once the landscape has been repaired. Whatever approach is
taken, our grandchildren will thank us, just as we thank our forebears
for their farsightedness in first establishing and then restoring our
large eastern national parks and forests.
An alternative expansion approach that Congress should consider is
the creation of a new landscape scale overlay designation designed to
protect targeted landscapes for climate change mitigation purposes,
perhaps as Natural Heritage Areas or Landscapes. The idea is to
identify and knit together an array of contiguous federal lands that
cover a particular sensitive or vital landscape, such as the Greater
Yellowstone area, the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, or the Greater
Grand Canyon region. For these special climate change mitigation
landscapes, Congress would need to establish new, more protective
management standards to protect the area's wildlife, watersheds, and
other resources from warming pressures. The important point is to
ensure that migratory corridors are protected, that jointly managed
watersheds are safeguarded, and that the needs of other climate-
sensitive resources are adequately addressed. In most instances, this
should not entail significant changes in current management standards
or priorities, and it may not require shifting management
responsibility from one agency to another. As noted earlier, nearby
state and private lands might be incorporated for management purposes
into these special designations through a carefully designed federal
funding program linked to integrated planning and development
requirements.
A related concern that merits congressional attention is the need
for new federal wildlife corridor legislation, or at least some
congressional direction and support for the wildlife corridor concept.
The scientific community agrees that a warming climate is altering
national park and other protected area ecosystems, thus forcing park
wildlife species to seek more suitable habitat outside park boundaries.
But as already noted, many of the lands surrounding national parks (and
other wildlife reserves) face significant development pressures that
could make safe passage treacherous at best and lethal at worst. It is
important, therefore, to safeguard essential corridors to enable
climate-impacted wildlife to survive by changing their home ranges as
global warming alters their surrounding habitats. A new system of
designated wildlife corridors would facilitate that movement and serve
as an important climate change adaptation strategy.
The concept of protected wildlife corridors has already been
endorsed by the Western Governors' Association, largely in response to
the growing impacts that energy activities and other developments are
having on the public lands. Western Governors' Association, Protecting
Wildlife Corridors and Crucial Wildlife Habitat in the West, Policy
Resolution 07-01 (Feb. 27, 2007). Thus far, the WGA has created a
Western Wildlife Habitat Council to identify potential wildlife
corridors and designed a process for protecting thee corridors. Western
Governors' Association, Western Wildlife Habitat Council Established
(June 29, 2008). New federal wildlife corridor legislation could be
modeled on the 1968 National Trails System Act, which designated and
funded several such trails and created a process for future trail
designations. 16 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1241-49. To create this system,
Congress should direct federal land managers and state wildlife
officials to collaboratively determine where corridors might be best
located for maximum impact. On federal public lands, a new corridor
designation could be simply overlaid, with some new management
restraints and planning obligations to ensure adequate protection. On
private lands, federal funds should be made available to provide
landowners with an incentive to participate in the corridor program.
Just as in the case of national trails, it should be possible to design
a national wildlife corridor program that will help address climate
change without significantly disrupting land ownership patterns.
* * * * * *
Clearly, the national parks are already being affected by climate
change impacts, and the parks have a significant role to play in
addressing the climate change challenge that we face. Because the
national parks provide sanctuary for important wildlife species and
other biodiversity resources, protective management of the parks and
surrounding lands should be a critical part of any national climate
change strategy. New legal standards designed to promote landscape
scale planning and to better coordinate park management with adjacent
federal, state, tribal, and private lands are essential to promote
managerial consistency and the protection and restoration of regional
ecosystems. The strategic and ecologically-based expansion of the
national park system can also help effectively address looming climate
change impacts. Funding for these initiatives might come from the new
revenues generated by a national cap and trade carbon management
program or by a new federal carbon tax. In sum, I urge the Subcommittee
to give serious consideration to the various proposals outlined above
as potential means to mitigate the impact of a warming climate on our
national parks and to sustain the resilient capacities of our vital
ecosystems.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Melyssa Watson, Director, Wilderness Support
Center, welcome. I am looking forward to your comments.
STATEMENT OF MELYSSA WATSON, DIRECTOR,
WILDERNESS SUPPORT CENTER, DURANGO, CALIFORNIA
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congresswoman
Napolitano. It's a real honor to be here today again, my name
is Melyssa Watson. I am the Senior Director for Wilderness of
the Wilderness Society.
Before I begin, I want to thank the Chairman, the
Congresswoman, and other members of the Subcommittee, for your
leadership on the Omnibus Public Lands Act that the President
signed into law just last week. Without your perseverance and
commitment to this legislation we wouldn't have seen it become
law. So, thank you.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, thank.
Mr. Grijalva. He was point on that.
Ms. Watson. Absolutely.
Let me also thank you and your staff for working so hard to
include a natural resources adaptation title in the upcoming
climate legislation. We look forward to working with you on
this in the coming months.
Today I'm going to speak to the unique role that wilderness
areas, both within and outside our national parks, have to play
in our country's efforts to provide climate change and also
provide some policy recommendations.
While not even the most ardent wilderness advocate would
suggest that wilderness is the solution to helping communities
and ecosystems adapt to a changing climate, it is one important
tool that we should use as part of a balanced portfolio of
climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
First, wilderness preserves the potential to produce
ecosystem services such as keeping our water clean, keeping
nutrients in our soils, and filtering the air that we breathe.
Further, many wilderness areas and other public lands are
natural carbon sinks. Carbon sequestration has not yet been
widely recognized as a valuable ecosystem service, and this
needs to change.
Second, wilderness is a critical scientific yardstick or
control for comparing the varying types of active management
outside of wilderness. As land managers experiment to maximum
our land's adaptive capacity, wilderness may be the most
effective conservation strategy in the future, just as it has
been in the past.
Finally, wilderness areas provide refuge from disturbances
resulting from climate change. Clearly large unfragmented core
landscapes protected as wilderness provide wildlife with room
to roam and refuge from areas suffering from climate impact
such as drought, floods and fire. They're really the essential
building blocks that we need as we work to protect and connect
landscapes and preserve ecological function over time.
When it comes to protecting and connecting landscapes, the
Park Service has a long and proud history of land stewardship,
wilderness management, and biodiversity protection. The agency
has a tremendous opportunity and perhaps even an obligation to
play a significant leadership role within the Federal
government on climate adaptation and mitigation. I was really
encouraged to hear the comments of Mr. Jarvis earlier in this
hearing.
As the Chairman is well aware, Congress too, obviously, has
a vital role in addressing climate change. First, the most
urgent action Congress should undertake is to pass legislation
that ends the practice of dumping harmful global-warming
pollution into the atmosphere for free. We need legislation
that will place a declining cap on the emissions of greenhouse
gases, through auctioning permits and using revenues for public
benefit.
Second, Congress should ensure that the Park Service and
other land management agencies have the necessary resources to
respond to climate change by providing dedicated annual funding
to support new investments and safeguarding the natural system
that sustains our human communities, as well as robust
populations of fish and wildlife.
Third, Congress should require Federal agencies to be
climate smart by incorporating consideration of climate change
into all of their planning and decision making.
Fourth, to prevent the further loss of the carbon stored on
our public and private lands, Congress should consider the
establishment of the U.S. Climate Reserve as a national
priority, and further establish the goal of no net loss of our
nation's carbon sink in the coming decade.
Finally, energy policy decisions and the fate of our public
lands are inextricably intertwined. Congress can ensure that
renewable energy is developed without impeding ecological
adaptation, destructing carbon storage, or harming important
wildlife habitat. And we look forward to working with Congress
and the administration to strike that balance.
In conclusion, I'd urge the Subcommittee to be visionary in
tackling climate change. The same kind of vision and foresight
that created our national parks and system of public lands is
needed today, but perhaps on an even larger scale that meets
the challenges posed by climate change.
Thank you again for the opportunity. And I look forward to
your questions.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Watson follows:]
Statement of Melyssa L. Watson, Senior Director for Wilderness,
The Wilderness Society
America's public lands--some 600 million acres of land and 150,000
square miles of protected waters--are the birthright of every citizen,
and the legacy we hold in trust for generations to come. Global warming
poses an unprecedented threat to the nation's iconic landscapes--our
national parks, forests, wilderness areas, desert lands managed by the
Bureau of Land Management, and wildlife refuges. At the same time, our
country's parks and other public lands offer one of our best hopes for
sustaining the plants, animals, birds, clean water and air, and
recreational opportunities that are important to our heritage. They
store carbon and provide large core protected areas that will be
essential in adapting to a changing climate. These lands also provide
critical services for our communities, including filtering the air we
breathe and the water we drink, and play important roles in our
nation's economy. Protecting these natural places is more important now
than ever before.
Public Lands in a Changing Climate
America's National Parks and other public lands include some of the
nation's most intact and diverse ecosystems and have an important role
to play in helping us address the effects of climate change on wildlife
and our communities. In addition to their vital role in carbon storage
and sequestration, protected wildlands can help species cope with the
many threats exacerbated by climate change. For example, wildlands
provide important habitat and migration paths and large, intact
landscapes create a greater buffer for wildlife from the impact of
disturbances, such as floods, hurricanes, and fires made more intense
by climate change.
Our economic health depends on the health of our public lands. One
in every 20 American jobs is related to outdoor recreation that depends
on land and ecosystem conservation. This includes fishing, hunting,
hiking and canoeing jobs which are at particular risk from the on the
ground impacts of climate change. Eighty-five percent of all hunters in
the West use public lands for hunting and fishing. The estimated value
of water flowing from national forest land is $7.2 billion per year
from both instream and offstream uses.
Community health depends on the health of our natural ecosystems.
One important function of natural ecosystems is to protect our public
health. Ecosystem services are those things that we would have to
produce ourselves if they were not provided by nature. Some are so
basic, such as keeping our water clean, keeping nutrients in our soils,
and filtering the air we breathe, that we are barely aware of what it
would take to provide man-made substitutes for these necessary
functions. For example, our forests provide 53% of the nation's
drinking water to more than 180 million people and 66 million rely
directly on National Forest lands as their water source. Other
services, such as carbon storage, are necessary complements to the
fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is clear that we cannot
live without these services, and that our welfare is tied to their
protection.
With protection, our public lands provide a critical component of
ecosystem resiliency and strength. They safeguard our natural systems
and the goods and services on which our human communities depend.
The Unique Role of Wilderness
Our designated wilderness lands are one of our nation's greatest
treasures. We have praised the foresight and perseverance of
generations of leaders in their work to establish, protect and grow our
system of wilderness lands and we will continue to celebrate the
recreational, scenic, educational and conservation benefits of
protected wilderness. The prescience of those early wilderness leaders
is likely to be especially important in an era of climate disruption.
While not even the most ardent wilderness advocate would suggest
that wilderness is the solution to helping ecosystems and communities
adapt to a changing climate--there must be many approaches if we are to
successfully address the issue--protected wild ecosystems most
certainly have a unique and very critical role in helping land managers
figure out a path forward.
Wilderness preserves the potential to produce ecosystem services.
As a strategy for protection of biodiversity and productive potential,
the advantages of wilderness are well known: wilderness produces the
best water quality, it provides a refuge for species from numerous
anthropogenic stressors outside wilderness, and it provides unique
recreational and aesthetic experiences. Wilderness represents the best
strategy we have identified so far for achieving all these benefits and
will remain an important strategy in the face of climate change.
Wilderness is a strategy for spreading the risk of failing to find
the right adaptation options on non-wilderness lands. Climate change
has changed the rules that have guided conservation for the past
century. If our goal is to conserve and manage lands so that they are
resilient in the face of climate change, then forms of management that
were relied on to produce goods and services may not work in the
future. Land management will have to be explicitly experimental to find
new ways to sustain ecosystem services for the future. Wilderness is a
unique form of land management among a suite of approaches that will
have to be employed to maximize adaptive capacity. It is impossible to
determine at present, but wilderness may turn out to be the most
effective conservation strategy in the future, just as it has been in
the past.
Wilderness is a critical scientific yardstick. New methods of
forestry and range, wildlife, and watershed management will need to be
utilized in order to adapt to future climate. The success of these new
approaches is anything but certain, and their performance will need to
be monitored and measured against a standard of comparison. Wilderness
can provide a scientific yardstick, or ``control,'' for comparing the
effects of active management outside wilderness.
Wilderness provides refuge from disturbances resulting from climate
change. Wild ecosystems are constantly changing in response to such
forces as fire and water; stasis is the exception. However, climate
change is altering the environment to reflect conditions previously
considered extreme or which are entirely out of the range that species
have contended with in the past. Increases in fire frequency and
changes in the timing and intensity of storms, for example, will alter
the recovery time of ecosystems and their ability to provide habitat
for wildlife. To survive these changes, species will need to be able to
move around the landscape to find the places that still provide
habitat. Large, unfragmented wilderness provides species with ``room to
roam'' and refuge from areas that have burned, are experiencing drought
or floods or from the effects of other climate-related disturbances.
A Path Forward
Climate change is forcing policymakers to take a new look at
wilderness areas as prime examples of large intact ecosystems that can
serve as reservoirs for biodiversity and clean water that will be
essential to the provision of ecosystem services in the future. Also,
because we were wise enough to protect areas of our country from
extractive uses, deforestation and development, we have in place
natural carbon sinks that can help us fight back against global
warming. Yet carbon sequestration has not yet been recognized as a
valuable ecosystem service provided by our wilderness areas, parks and
other public wildlands.
Similarly, natural resources adaptation efforts have rarely moved
from the vulnerability assessment phase to the implementation phase--
that is we have studied the problem but have done little as a country
to actually implement plans to address it. The vulnerability of our
public lands to a few degrees rise in temperature is deep, profound
and, unfortunately, inescapable. Even if all emissions of greenhouse
gases were to stop tomorrow, the emissions of the last 100 years are
causing global warming that we must anticipate and adapt to. We have
little time. We must move ahead, from gathering and synthesizing data
to implementing adaptation strategies.
We need to be both proactive and reactive. That is, we must have
the ability to react and deal with climate change after an event or
impacts have occurred, and we need to take action to prevent and reduce
exposure to future impacts. The details of future scenarios, in terms
of timing, scale, and severity, cannot be known with certainty and this
uncertainty has been used as a smokescreen to delay action. However,
even without precise knowledge of future events ``which we will
probably never gain--proactive policy planning improves preparedness by
integrating adaptation considerations into the decision-making process.
Even with all of the uncertainty, land managers already have many
of the needed tools. A balanced portfolio of adaptation and mitigation
strategies provides an insurance policy for our natural heritage that
diminishes the risks associated with climate change. We may need to
utilize them in new and creative ways, but today's conservation work is
still relevant:
One, expand core protected areas, reconnect the land and reduce
avoidable stressors. Scale matters in wildland and ecosystem
conservation. Large, connected, intact ecosystems offer the best hope
of surviving global warming, sustaining the capacity to sequester
carbon, preserve species habitat and protect human communities. This
was true before the threat of climate change was first recognized, and
it is even truer today now that the threat is accepted as a reality. We
need to protect large areas of habitat set within sympathetically
managed, jurisdictionally and ecologically diverse landscapes that can
also yield food, fuel, and materials. Through the use of protective
designations and conservation management on our public lands as well as
conservation easements, acquisition from willing sellers, and
complementary management of private lands we can:
Reduce fragmentation and increase the size of core
protected lands;
Ensure representation and redundancy of different
ecosystem and habitat types to minimize the potential for loss of
component parts: and
Protect lands along a variety of elevational and
latitudinal ranges to ensure connectivity across environmental
gradients and allow wildlife to migrate to suitable habitat as climate
changes.
Scientists frequently point out that given the uncertainty of how
global warming will affect the climate and resiliency of any particular
natural environment, the first best strategy is to reduce the non-
climate pressures that threaten critical ecosystems and the communities
that depend on them. Toxics, development, agricultural intensification,
overgrazing, loss of wetlands to infill, etc. are all added stresses to
a system already stressed to the brink. Protection of large, connected,
intact landscapes can reduce the effects of these pressures on climate-
stressed ecosystems.
Two, develop strong adaptation plans. Land managers must consider,
analyze, and develop plans to address the impacts of climate change
when undertaking planning exercises, setting priorities, and making
management decisions.
Adaptation strategies must develop at the local and regional
levels. Climate change and associated impacts vary greatly from
location to location. Yet systems such as water resources and habitat
cross traditional jurisdictional lines. Those engaged in planning need
to share information, plan together, and collaboratively modify
existing polices and procedures to ensure effective solutions. The
exchange of information, resources, best practices, and lessons learned
across jurisdictions and among different stakeholders is a key element
of successful adaption planning.
We also must avoid the situation where the adaptation actions of
one sector compromise sustainable adaption in another, or threaten our
ability to protect vulnerable species and ecosystems. This is yet
another reason to focus on collaboration and cooperation between and
amongst interest groups and experts.
Strong, science-based adaptation plans should include:
an experimental framework in which management is
conducted using experimental treatments, ``controls'', monitoring, and
constant learning in a cycle of adaptive management;
protection for existing and potential ecological movement
corridors (including those that will enable wildlife, as it moves, to
pass through urban and developed areas) between major ecosystems;
protection for mature and complex elements of the
ecosystem, such as mature forest stands, as these are both difficult to
replace once lost and likely to be resilient to climate change (having
demonstrated the ability to adapt to past changes in climate);
mechanisms to engage the public in ongoing collaborative
management; and
for many ecosystems, an evaluation of the need to secure
additional water rights for drought-prone ecosystems.
Three, manage for change. Adaption to climate change must address
uncertainty. We must adopt management approaches that both assess and
react to risks, but are also designed to learn from experience.
Monitoring provides an essential feedback loop to assess effectiveness
and develop action accordingly. Public land managers have a host of
tools available to help them appropriately manage their resources in
the face of climate change. Some of the tools and actions that managers
must consider include:
Restoration of natural fire regimes through the use of
prescribed fire, wildland fire use, and mechanical treatment where
necessary to reduce damage from unnatural fire behavior more likely in
a warmer climate;
Removal or management of non-native, invasive species
that weaken ecosystems and increase susceptibility to climate change;
Conservation of rare species and restoration of
extirpated species--though not necessarily in their historical locales)
as these may be important to future ecosystem function through
partnerships between agencies, research institutions and private
partners;
Management of post-disturbance environments for future
resilience (e.g., if replanting after a fire is necessary, consider
species that may be better adapted to future climates); and
Monitoring of ecological and human systems in order to
anticipate impacts and adjust management techniques.
Finally, we recognize the unique role the National Park Service
(NPS) can play in climate change adaptation and mitigation. With the
Park Service's long and proud history of leadership on treasured
landscape stewardship and conservation, wilderness designation and
biodiversity protection, NPS has a tremendous opportunity--perhaps even
an obligation--to play a significant leadership role within the
Department of the Interior (DOI) and with other federal land management
agencies on issues relating to climate adaptation and mitigation. In
addition to opportunities to initiate and coordinate on important
science and vulnerability assessments, no less meaningful would be
leadership on reducing DOI's own carbon footprint. We encourage NPS to
set a high bar and ambitious goals that can serve as models for NPS as
well as other federal agencies. What a tremendous accomplishment it
would be for NPS to be carbon neutral by the NPS Centennial in 2018!
The Congressional Role
First, the most time-sensitive role that Congress can play is to
pass legislation that ends the practice of dumping harmful global
warming pollution into the atmosphere for free. The President has
submitted a budget that assumes the end of uncapped free dumping by
polluters. Congress needs to pass the legislation that will put that
assumption into practice, by placing a declining cap on the emissions
of greenhouse gases, making the polluters pay through auctioning
permits and capturing the auction revenues for public benefits.
Second, we need to ensure that agencies have the necessary
resources to respond to the new climate imperatives. Congress should
provide dedicated and assured annual funding to our land management
agencies that will
support new investments in safeguarding the natural
systems that sustain human communities and robust fish and wildlife
populations
provide funding for a broad range of eligible activities
including conservation, restoration, enhancements, planning, research
and monitoring and education.
encourage investment in habitat acquisition and
protection. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, for example, was
woefully underfunded during the Bush Administration. The new
Administration has placed a high priority on this important program,
increasing its budget by 50 percent next year and fully funding it by
2014.
Funding for land management climate priorities should come from the
auction of carbon allowances under a new climate bill. This investment
in natural resources must be dedicated (not appropriated annually) so
that resource managers can plan ahead in their adaptation projects
knowing funding is secure and to ensure funding goes exclusively to
global warming-related projects. This is the approach that has been so
successful in funding the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act
since 1950. It works for wildlife land acquisition--now we need to take
the same approach to climate-related land acquisition, management and
protection intended to protect all human communities as well.
Third, the agencies must have a clear and strong mandate to be
``climate smart'' by incorporating consideration of climate change into
all of their planning, decision-making and research priority setting
process. All federal agencies engaged in land management and
biodiversity activities should protect, maintain, restore and value
biodiversity and wildlife habitat, while incorporating climate change
mitigation and adaptation activities into management and planning. This
may require new policies or legislation.
Fourth, Congress should declare the establishment of a U.S. Climate
Reserve a national priority, with the intention of ensuring through a
variety of regulatory sticks and financial carrots that we achieve a
``no net loss'' standard with respect to preserving the nation's carbon
sink. California, for example, has proposed that it set a 2020 target
for emissions reductions that assumes no net loss of current
sequestration services from its forests and has called on the federal
government to adopt a similar goal for federal lands. The Wilderness
Society urges Congress to establish an explicit federal target of ``No
Net Loss'' in the existing sequestration value of our public forests.
This U.S. Climate Reserve needs to be nurtured and enhanced, both
as a carbon sink and as a storehouse of other ecosystem services on
which we rely. Congress should also provide incentives for private
landowners to manage their lands in a manner which contributes to the
protection of our country's carbon storage capacity. Sixty percent of
our nation's forests are privately-owned so their management must be
part of the effort to mitigate the threat of climate change. From
Wilderness designation to wetland banking, we need a truly national
strategy to stop the galloping destruction of our existing carbon
stocks that begins with the recognition that our forests, as well as
other carbon storing ecosystems such as grasslands and pinyon-juniper,
are weapons in the fight against global warming and should be protected
like an army protects the armory.
Finally, energy policy decisions and the fate of our public lands
are inextricably intertwined. We must sustain the integrity of our
wildlands and wildlife habitats as we make the transition to a new
sustainable energy economy. Abundant wind, solar, and geothermal
resources are found on public lands, especially here in the Southwest
where solar resources are concentrated. Interest in developing these
resources is rapidly increasing. As with any development that occurs in
predominantly natural systems, large-scale renewable energy projects
can entail a range of adverse impacts and must be carefully planned and
sited to ensure renewable energy generation does not unintentionally
impede ecological adaptation, disrupt carbon storage, or fragment large
core areas of protected public lands.
We need not choose between development of renewable energy and
protection of the country's wildlife and treasured landscapes. We have
the opportunity to develop renewable energy the right way, to
prioritize development on already disturbed lands, brownfields and
sites close to the communities they serve to reduce transmission needs,
costs and losses. Siting on public lands should require an open and
transparent process about where it is best to build clean energy
generation facilities and about how to ensure renewable energy
installations are kind to both the land and the atmosphere. In this
way, they can avoid the conflicts we've seen over other forms of energy
development on public lands. We applaud Secretary Salazar for issuing a
Secretarial Order prioritizing renewable energy development over other
forms of energy on the public lands, and for establishing a task force
that concerning renewable energy development and its impacts on global
warming. It is imperative that we act now to develop these resources in
the right way from the start lest our communities and ecosystems suffer
from the devastating impacts of global warming.
Conclusions
In 2007, in response to a request form this body, the Government
Accountability Office issued a report recommending that the Secretaries
of the Interior, Agriculture and Commerce develop guidance advising
managers on how to address climate change effects on the resources they
manage. In commenting on the draft GAO report, the agencies generally
agreed with this recommendation, but they have been slow to take
action.
The nation's national parks, wilderness areas and other public
lands cannot afford any further delay. Climate change must be a major,
if not the primary, factor in making sound land management planning
decisions and in shaping the agenda for land conservation actions for
the foreseeable future.
Thank you for opportunity to testify today.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. Michael Cipra, California Desert Program
Manager, National Parks Conservation Association, welcome.
Mr. Cipra. Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CIPRA, CALIFORNIA DESERT PROGRAM MANAGER,
NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION, JOSHUA TREE,
CALIFORNIA
Mr. Cipra. Chairman Grijalva and Congresswoman Napolitano,
I wanted to thank you for your leadership. I wanted to thank
you for inviting me to testify. And I wanted to say, welcome to
the California desert.
Founded in 1919, the National Parks Conservation
Association works to protect, preserve, and enhance America's
National Park System for present and future generations.
I'm here today on behalf of our more than 330,000 members
who care deeply about the wildlife ecosystem, the cultural
resources that our parks preserve, and want to see these unique
American treasures passed on to our children and grandchildren
undiminished.
The single greatest threat to the health of our national
parks is global climate change. It threatens not only the
plants and animals, but also the health and economic viability
of many communities that rely on the park's reserves and
monuments. Outdoor pursuits that depend on healthy ecosystems
contribute 730 million dollars annually to the U.S. Economy.
Keeping wildlife populations, rivers, forests, deserts and our
national parks healthy will allow us to support nearly 6.5
million existing jobs and continue to generate $88 billion
annually in state and national tax revenue.
Today we sit outside Joshua Tree National Park. Over 1.3
million people visit this park every year because of its unique
natural opportunities, to see animals like bighorn sheep and
desert tortoise in the wild, or to stand at sunset in a forest
of Joshua trees, the park's namesake species.
However, based on the research of Dr. Ken Cole, of the
USGS, the effects of climate change over the next hundred years
could remove Joshua trees as a species from the national park
that bears their name.
What does it mean to have a Joshua Tree National Park
without Joshua trees? On a scientific level it means fewer
animals and an ecosystem out of balance. On an economic level
it means fewer recreation visits and less money generated for
our communities. And on a spiritual level it means that our
grandchildren will see a diminished world.
Joshua Tree is not the only national park that's being
affected by climate change. In fewer than 20 years glaciers
will disappear from Glacier National Park. Coral reefs are
dying at Biscayne and Virgin Island National parks due to
increased heat and disease. Insect pests are thriving. They're
devastating forests from Great Smoky Mountains to Yellowstone.
As temperatures rise species throughout our national parks are
being driven upward in elevation and are literally running out
of space where they can live.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is absolutely necessary
to guarantee the health of our parks, our wildlife, our
communities, and our children's future. But reducing emissions
is not enough. The effects of climate change are already
impacting wildlife and natural systems throughout the national
parks. Even with immediate action to reduce greenhouse gases,
these negative impacts on wildlife and natural systems will
continue for many decades to come.
By establishing a coordinated national plan to protect
natural resources and dedicating a portion of the revenues from
the auction of pollution permits under a Federal cap and trade
system for wildlife and ecosystem adaptation programs, we can
preserve the life-supporting services provided by our national
parks and other natural lands.
Federal, state, and tribal agencies must work together in a
coordinated way to address the crucial issues related to the
survival of plant and animal species. Their work must be
informed by the best and latest science. Effective programs
must focus on building ecosystem resilience by protecting
important habitat in migration corridors and reducing other
stressors such as air pollution and nonnative species.
NPCA is very encouraged by the legislation introduced in
the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 31 by
representatives Waxman and Markey. Their comprehensive energy
and climate bill would substantially reduce greenhouse gas
emissions through an integrated set of policies that are
sensible and achievable, including clean renewable energy,
energy efficiency, clean fuels and vehicles, and a declining
cap on emissions of major emitters. We are especially pleased
that congressmen Waxman and Markey included in their bill a
robust adaptation title that would safeguard natural resources
and wildlife from climate change impacts. We recognize that the
House Natural Resources Committee is continuing its leadership
and its work on natural resource adaptation issues, and we
offer our assistance and support for your work.
As Americans we have faced tremendous economic and
environmental challenges before, and we have met these
challenges with courage, with urgency, and with a coordinated
response. After all, we are the Nation that invented the
national park idea and brought it to the rest of the world.
This truly democratic idea that the best of our natural and
cultural heritage is not something to be enjoyed by just a few
privileged individuals, but should be owned by all of us, to
guarantee our collective health in the future, for our
recreation and education and spiritual growth and economic
health, and for our children's benefit as well.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony. I'll
look for forward to any questions you have.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cipra follows:]
Statement of Michael Cipra, California Desert Program Manager,
National Parks Conservation Association
Mr. Chairman, and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me to testify about the challenges that our
national parks face as a result of climate change, and the opportunity
that we have to meet these challenges.
Founded in 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association works
to protect, preserve, and enhance America's National Park System for
present and future generations. Today, we have 24 regional and field
offices across the country, including the California Desert Field
Office in Joshua Tree, California, which I manage. I'm here today on
behalf of our more than 330,000 members, who care deeply about the
wildlife and ecosystems our parks preserve, and want to see these
unique American treasures passed on to our children and grandchildren
undiminished.
The single greatest threat to the health of our national parks is
global climate change. It threatens not only the plants and animals,
but also the health and economic viability of many communities that
rely on the parks, preserves, and monuments. According to a 2006 study
by the Outdoor Industry Association, fishing, hunting, wildlife
watching, hiking and other outdoor pursuits that depend on healthy
ecosystems contribute $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy.
Keeping wildlife populations, rivers, forests, deserts, and our
national parks healthy will allow us to support nearly 6.5 million
existing jobs and continue to generate $88 billion in state and
national tax revenue.
Today we sit outside Joshua Tree National Park, which is visited by
over 1.3 million people every year. So many people visit this desert
park because of its unique natural opportunities--to see animals like
bighorn sheep and desert tortoise in the wild, to gaze in wonder at a
field of blooming wildflowers or stand at sunset in a forest of Joshua
trees, the park's namesake species. Joshua Tree was ushered into the
park system largely through the efforts of an inspired American
citizen, Minerva Hamilton Hoyt. Minerva Hoyt was a desert enthusiast in
the 1920s and 1930s, who witnessed the widespread destruction of native
desert plant life by thoughtless people who dug up, burned, and
otherwise destroyed many of the cacti and Joshua trees that Ms. Hoyt
found beautiful. So she did something quintessentially American--she
worked to protect the natural world, not just for herself but for all
Americans, including those not yet born. Largely through Minerva Hoyt's
tireless efforts to educate others about the beauty and value of the
desert, Joshua Tree was shepherded into the National Park System as a
national monument. In 1994, with the passage of the California Desert
Protection Act, Joshua Tree achieved national park status.
We stand today at another important crossroads for this park, a
moment when we can witness damage and destruction wrought by human
activity, and a moment when we have the opportunity to protect what has
great value for the American people.
A month ago, the National Parks Conservation Association, in
partnership with the National Park Service and a number of other
organizations, hosted the second annual Climate Change and the
California Desert Conference in Joshua Tree, California. One of our
distinguished speakers was Kirsten Erin Ironside from Northern Arizona
University. Professor Ironside presented the results of her research
conducted with Dr. Ken Cole of the U.S. Geological Survey. This
research applies climate models to the home range of Yucca brevifolia,
a species commonly known as the Joshua tree. The results that Professor
Ironside presented at our conference were stark. In all six of the
climate models she explored, in 100 years, there was no new recruitment
of Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park, and significant death of
existing trees. Consider that for a second. As a result of climate
change, there may no longer be Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National
Park. This plant is not just an iconic image on a postcard--it is
critical to the health of this desert ecosystem. Ecologists refer to
the Joshua tree as a ``foundation species''--a plant that serves as
living habitat for a whole range of animals, providing food and shelter
critical to the survival of everything from Great Horned Owls, which
nest in the tree tops, to night lizards, North America's smallest
lizards, which give live birth to their young beneath decaying bark of
the Joshua tree. The Joshua tree is absolutely critical to the health
and integrity of Joshua Tree National Park's ecosystem. And based on
the research of Dr. Cole and Professor Ironside, the effects of climate
change over the next 100 years may mean that Joshua trees as a species
will not survive in the national park that bears their name.
What does it mean to have a Joshua Tree National Park without
Joshua trees? On a scientific level, it means fewer animals and an
ecosystem out of balance. On an economic level, it means fewer
recreation visits and less money generated for our communities. And on
a spiritual level, it means that our grandchildren will see adiminished
world.
Minerva Hamilton Hoyt watched the native plants disappear from this
desert, and she didn't despair or give up or lose hope. She decided to
do something to halt the destruction she saw. This is the story of
America. We have a rich history of rising to meet conservation
challenges. After all, we are the nation that invented the national
park idea and brought it to the rest of the world--this truly
democratic idea that the best of our natural and cultural heritage is
not something to be enjoyed by just a few privileged individuals, but
should be owned by all of us, to guarantee our collective health and
future, for our recreation and education and spiritual growth and
economic benefit, and for our children's benefit as well.
Joshua Tree is not the only national park that is being affected by
climate change. In fewer than 20 years, glaciers will disappear from
Glacier National Park. Coral reefs are dying in Biscayne and Virgin
Island National Parks due to increased heat and disease. Insect pests
are thriving, and are devastating forests from Great Smoky Mountains to
Yellowstone. Water levels at Lake Mead are in decline as a result of
extended drought. As temperatures rise, species throughout our national
parks are being driven upward in elevation and are literally running
out of space where they can live. Global warming poses an unprecedented
threat to the natural world and the survival of wildlife that Americans
cherish. Ecosystems that support healthy wildlife also support healthy
human communities and are the foundation of a robust economy.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is absolutely necessary to
guarantee the health of our parks, our wildlife, our communities, and
our children's future. But reducing emissions is not enough. The
effects of climate change are already impacting wildlife and natural
systems throughout the national parks and across multiple land
management agencies. Even with immediate action to reduce greenhouse
gasses, those negative impacts on wildlife and natural systems will
continue for many decades to come.
There is an historic opportunity for us as Americans to address
these challenges. Federal, state and tribal agencies must work together
in a coordinated way to address the crucial issues related to the
survival of plant and animal species, as well as intact ecosystems.
Their work must be informed by the best and latest science. Effective
wildlife adaptation activities must focus on building ecosystem
resiliency by protecting important habitat and migration corridors and
reducing other stressors, such as air pollution and non-native species.
Joshua Tree National Park presents a prime example of how other
environmental stressors such as air pollution and non-native species
can combine with climate change to create significant challenges. High
levels of nitrogen are currently being deposited on the soil in Joshua
Tree National Park by air pollution moving east from the Los Angeles
Basin. Dr. Edith Allen of the University of California at Riverside
found that these nitrogen levels are 15 to 30 times higher than the
levels in an undisturbed ecosystem. The park's native desert plants
have evolved to thrive without this extra nitrogen. But many invasive
plants, grasses in particular, do really well with the added fertilizer
from air pollution. Exotic grasses, such as red brome and cheatgrass,
now represent up to 60 percent of the park's biomass from annual
plants. The increased fuel loads provided by these exotic grasses can
then carry lightning-ignited fires from plant to plant, resulting in
increasingly large and destructive wildfires throughout the Mojave
Desert region. In 1999, the Juniper Complex fire, burned 13,894 acres
of slow-growing California junipers, pinyon pines, and Joshua trees.
This was the largest fire in Joshua Tree National Park's history.
Desert plants are highly susceptible to fire, particularly during
times of drought. Desert tortoises and other ground-dwelling animals
have low survivability during an intense fire event. And for people who
live in an urban-park interface, homes and even families are put at
risk. Now overlay climate change on these challenges posed by air
pollution and invasive species. Invasive, fire-carrying grasses like
red brome have accelerated growth with increased levels of atmospheric
carbon dioxide, while plants like Joshua trees may never recover their
habitat due to the increased temperatures and evaporation caused by
climate change. To address the challenges of maintaining an intact
ecosystem at Joshua Tree National Park, managers need the resources to
simultaneously address exotic species control, manage fires, monitor
air pollution, and work cooperatively with land management agencies
such as the BLM to create ecological linkage corridors free from
invasive species.
And that's just one park. Efforts to estimate the financial
investment it will take to help wildlife and ecosystems vulnerable to
climate change's impacts are too preliminary to precisely quantify.
Like the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, the size and
seriousness of the threat requires an urgent response. Making a
substantial new financial commitment to conservation science and
ecosystem management is a significant challenge we must meet. Given
both the magnitude of the funding necessary and the need for a reliable
funding stream, this challenge cannot be met through the annual
congressional appropriations process. Funding will need to be sustained
over multiple decades to protect our parks and other natural wealth.
Fortunately, legislation to address global warming provides an
historic opportunity and an appropriate avenue to safeguard our
national parks, their fish, plants, and wildlife, from the destructive
effects of climate change. Virtually all of the legislative proposals
advanced in the 110th Congress to reduce global warming emissions
appropriately recognized the need to address the unavoidable and severe
harm that climate change will have on wildlife and the ecosystems that
sustain us all. These proposals did so by establishing a coordinated
national plan to protect natural resources, and dedicating a portion of
the revenues from the auction of pollution permits under a federal cap-
and-trade system. The Senate's Climate Security Act, for example,
proposed allocating roughly 7 percent of federal revenues from the sale
of allowances, or roughly $7 billion per year to addressing the impacts
of global warming on wildlife. This funding would be made available
automatically and not be subject to the uncertainties of the annual
federal appropriations process. Such funding would be but a small
fraction of the value of the life-supporting services provided annually
by our national parks and other natural lands, and is commensurate with
the challenge before us.
NPCA is very encouraged by the legislation introduced in the House
Energy and Commerce Committee on March 31 by Representatives Waxman and
Markey. Their comprehensive energy and climate bill would substantially
reduce greenhouse gas emissions through an integrated set of policies
that are sensible and achievable, including clean renewable energy,
energy efficiency, clean fuels and vehicles, and a declining cap on
emissions of major emitters. We are especially pleased that Congressmen
Waxman and Markey included in their bill a robust adaptation title that
would safeguard natural resources and wildlife from climate change
impacts. NPCA recognizes that the House Natural Resources Committee is
continuing its work on natural resource adaptation issues, and we offer
our assistance and support for your work.
Given the direct and severe impact of global warming on wildlife
and ecosystems, it is appropriate that at least a percentage of the
significant federal revenue from the auction of pollution permits,
which estimates place as high as hundreds of billions of dollars, be
used to address the damage and protect life-supporting ecological
services. The significant and certain funding stream provided in a cap-
and-trade bill can provide the most effective mechanism to ensure that
the nation's federal, state and tribal natural-resource agencies will
have the financial resources necessary to effectively address climate
change's unavoidable impacts.
If we are realistic in our analysis of climate change, we must
anticipate a future that presents huge challenges for our national
parks, our natural systems, our communities, our health, and our
economic future. As Americans, we have faced tremendous economic and
environmental challenges before, from the dust bowl of the 1930s to the
loss of species from DDT. And we have met these challenges with
courage, with urgency, and with a coordinated response. That time to
meet our challenges has arrived again. Climate change presents the
single greatest threat to our environment, and our health and economic
future depends on how we meet this challenge. Introducing cap-and-trade
legislation with a dedicated funding source for wildlife and ecosystem
adaptation activities is crucial to a healthy future for our economy,
our national parks, and our children's health. Thank you for the
opportunity to provide testimony, and I look forward to any questions
you may have.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Professor, first of all let me thank you for
your very thoughtful and helpful points and ideas, the same
points and ideas we've been asking other witnesses about. Your
point of view is very much appreciated.
In the legislation--I don't know if you've reviewed it
yet--but in the legislation that's being promoted right now in
the draft, Waxman and Markey, the adaptation language in there,
have you had a chance to look at that?
Mr. Keiter. I have read through it, relatively quickly, but
I have had a chance----
Mr. Grijalva. Any reactions to that?
Mr. Keiter. I think that it takes us a good ways down the
road. What I'm particularly concerned about, as I indicated in
my testimony, is promoting interagency coordination,
collaboration, and consistency in this area.
There is a provision in there, as I recall, that it calls
for cooperation between the agencies. And I think that gets us
partway there. What I'm concerned about is that it's not very
specific in terms of what is required. And my experience over
the years, trying to understand how the various particularly
public land agencies interact with each other, is that in
particular locations with particular park or forest managers,
or district rangers, if the personalities mesh, things work
well. But those positions change. And I see the need to try to
institutionalize better coordination. The best idea I've been
able to come up with is the one I alluded to in my testimony,
that is perhaps requiring a written interagency coordination
statement that would reflect--perhaps as part of the
environmental impact analysis process--the coordination
efforts, require specific responses by an action agency to the
concerns of other agencies, and require specific mitigation and
adaptation responses as part of the climate change concern that
all of the agencies share.
I also think that it would be helpful, frankly, if this
sort of a coordination statement or requirement was potentially
enforceable in court. My experience is that when that looms in
the background, that the agencies take those sorts of
obligations seriously. NEPA has had a salutary effect because
environmental impact statements can be challenged in court. And
I think something like this might work in a similar sort of
manner.
Mr. Grijalva. I think that Mr. Cipra said, I think, the
legislation takes us a long way. And the point of this
Subcommittee, and hopefully the Full Committee, will be to hone
in where our jurisdiction is, and hone in effectively that we
should not deal with the public lands as an after-the-fact
thought. Once legislation is moving, to have a marker down in
terms of a piece of legislation that we are able to influence
the outcome of the full legislation. And some of the thoughts
that you brought here today were very good.
I think in your studies of the Glacier National Park and
its neighbors you talked about you observed some of the other
factors besides climate change, development proposals that
might harm the park, and sometimes the reluctance, for whatever
reason, of land managers there to speak out about what that
potential harm could be. And we're talking about regional
solutions as we move forward. And do you recommend any explicit
authority that we should indicate--and this is to NPS--in order
to deal with those harmful encroachments, whatever they may be?
Mr. Keiter. Right.
Mr. Grijalva. And do you think that's been a failure of law
or is it just a practice that's not practiced?
Mr. Keiter. Well, as the committee is well aware, there are
difficult political and relationship issues both between the
Park Service and sister Federal land management agencies as
well as the surrounding private and tribal landowners. And in
some locations that has dissuaded park managers from being as
assertive as they might be.
I guess what might be most helpful would be a clear
expression from Congress to the Park Service that it needs to
be actively engaged in management and planning decision making
for the entire landscape or ecosystem where individual national
park units sit.
There is language to that effect in the 2006 management
policies document that was alluded to earlier today. And that I
think is helpful. But direction from Congress making explicit
the authority or at a minimum the responsibility and the
authority of the Park Service to participate and engage would
be helpful.
Mr. Grijalva. I think that Secretary Salazar and the
President made a very good point. And it's going to be very
helpful through this process. Because I can understand some of
the reluctance, given some of the other political machinations
that have been going on for eight years. I think what they said
was that there's going to be a reliance on science and fact-
based decision making. And I think if that becomes the gold
standard, I think we're all in much better shape as we go
along.
Ms. Watson, my question is about--I think we were talking
about it back in the anteroom before the hearing. We're kind
of--we're going into uncharted waters here on adaptation
strategies for our public lands. And as we go forward, I have
heard I don't know how many times at the hearings in Washington
from some of our colleagues about how environmental radicals
are absolutely ham-stringing the system with the lawsuits. I
don't share that view, but I'm curious to know from your
organizational point of view--and I'm going to ask then if you
could respond right after her, Mr. Cipra, we're building a
bicycle while we're riding it. That's the scenario here. And so
how much leeway--how much good faith effort do we give the
National Park Services to begin the adaptation strategy? And
some of those efforts are going to not have the success that we
would want them to have. What's the latitude that you see
organizationally, if there is indeed transparency, good faith
effort, public process? Put all those into what is being done,
but yet that adaptation restoration strategy didn't have the
outcome that it was intended to. How do you see leeway in terms
of community based and NGO's out there?
Ms. Watson. Sure. Thanks for the question. And I do think
with those safeguards in place we have to allow a fair amount
of leeway. I think we recognize that some land management is
going to have to be explicitly experimental. Moving forward, we
don't know what's going to work everywhere. I think that we do
have some forms of land management that are well tested, that
we should continue to use, wilderness among them. But having
those in place will allow us to be experimental in other
places. And certainly from my organization's perspective,
that's something that we support and encourage. And I think in
the context of looking at the larger landscape, we have to do
that, and understand what's going to work across a range of
ecosystems, both for wildlife but for the communities that
depend upon the services that our public lands provide.
Mr. Grijalva. Sir, if you don't mind.
Mr. Cipra. Absolutely. Sometimes the National Parks
Conservation Association is described as a watchdog. I tend to
see it more as a guardian angel or maybe----
Mr. Grijalva. Guard dog?
Mr. Cipra. Life partner, yeah, for the National Park
Service. And I think flexibility is absolutely the key. That
there needs to be a flexibility and a willingness to partner. I
think the more partners the better in our attempt to deal with
the impacts of climate change.
And I think that National Parks Conservation Association is
already partnering with the National Park Service in the
climate-friendly parks program, which is also involving the
environmental protection agency, as Director Jarvis alluded to
earlier.
And you look at a park like Joshua Tree National Park
that's taking some really fantastic steps, you have solar
panels on shade structures, that before they even put in the
solar panels they were looking at ways to make the buildings
more efficient.
The Park Service is leading by example, in my mind. And we
would want to continue to support them.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
Ms. Watson, one other question. Then there's one for
everybody. Two for everybody.
In your testimony, you talk about managing for change. Can
you expand on that briefly.
Ms. Watson. Sure. I think that in terms of managing for
changes, I said earlier we don't know what's going to work in
every instance and, therefore, we need to be willing to
experiment with new forms of management at the same time we use
some other controls of existing management to measure against.
I think we also need to be looking at not only what has
worked, but be willing to explore new concepts like the U.S.
Climate Reserve that I mentioned in my written testimony, and
create new tools that could be part of managing for change in
the future. I think there are any number of ways. I could go on
for some time, but I'll stop there.
Mr. Grijalva. Well, I appreciate that.
If all of you could as briefly as possible respond, Mrs.
Napolitano needs to ask questions. She's giving me a dirty
look. I'm not looking that way but----
Mrs. Napolitano. He can feel it.
Mr. Grijalva. I can feel it.
Cap and trade could guarantee a revenue stream for the
parks systems and the public lands. We've also talked about the
need to expand, increase, supplement efforts that are going on,
initiate corridor activity, initiate adaptation and
restoration, planning and projects that are not part of the
landscape right now. And many have seen that cap and trade as a
resource that can be tapped. Your reactions.
Ms. Watson. Well, I'll start.
I think that absolutely there are any number of priorities
that can and perhaps should be funded as legislation moves
forward. I think the role of public lands and natural resource
adaptation is especially critical in funding for some core
components of that. I think supporting new investments in the
kind of management for change that we were just talking about
would be critical, providing some funding for what works now,
existing activities around restoration, planning, research, and
education that some of the other witnesses have talked about.
But also encouraging investment and habitat acquisition and
protection will be critical. The land, water conservation fund
and other sources of funding I think have to be part of that
equation.
Mr. Grijalva. OK. If there's a reaction. It's not
necessary.
Mr. Cipra. National Parks Conservation Association would
definitely agree that there be a balance between some of the
things we talked about in terms of education. LWCF funding for
acquisition of crucial wildlife. People are saying wildlife
corridors; ecological linkages is a great way to put it as
well. And I think for National Park Service and other Federal
agencies to be able to deal with it on the ground effect of
climate change.
Mr. Grijalva. Professor, any comment on that?
Mr. Keiter. I think I would echo what the other witnesses
have said, that some funding source I think would be necessary
to improve coordination, facilitate large-scale landscape
management, and in particular to provide funding to induce
additional collaboration and cooperation from state, tribal,
and private landowners through the contingent funding mechanism
that is available from Congress.
Mr. Grijalva. OK. Now, that's one of the things that
worries me, that we might have legislation that will have all
the authorizing language that we want, but nothing behind it.
And so I think as we look at this legislation, we want to
explore what the variety of revenue streams are available in
order for whatever we are legislating. Actually there's an
opportunity for the public lands area, watershed areas, et
cetera, to be able to carry out some of these things.
The question I'm going to send to you is about the earlier
question I asked about balance. I think that's an important
question, and even as part of this discussion. We talked about
using damaged land as a primary site and not for renewable
activity. Talked about buffering along some very important
areas, interagency cooperation where other ideas that were
mentioned. But I still think this balance definition question
for our land managers and our leadership in the Park Service is
essential that we get around to that as quickly as possible.
Because I think otherwise, we're always going to be fighting
the battle over the latest initiative as opposed to having some
plan that we're working over. So, I would send that to you. And
if you could respond to it, it will be very helpful.
Mrs. Napolitano?
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And yes, I'm
chomping at the bit.
Mr. Keiter, I have a lot of questions. I may have to submit
some of them in writing. But you state on page 3, the first
paragraph, in regard to the threatened activities, you include
oil and gas development on nearby Federal and state lands, too
many roads, too much regulated off-road vehicles activity, ill-
planned subdivisions. So, we see that in many areas. But how
prevalent is the use of these public lands in regard--because I
know they use a lot of water, number one. But do they clean it
up? And is there a funding mechanism to be able to force that,
going after the potential responsible parties, the PRPs, if you
will. And our talk in Moab is a perfect example of how we need
to know how many of these are left untended and will have to be
cleaned up at taxpayer expense.
Mr. Keiter. You're talking about the aftermath of energy
development----
Mrs. Napolitano. Correct.
Mr. Keiter.--or other mineral development in particular.
Mrs. Napolitano. Correct, on public land.
Mr. Keiter. On the public lands, yes. Well, there are some
studies available--and I can't recite them off the top of my
head--from the Congressional Research Service and other
government entities, that document the legacy of some of the
mining and energy development activities on the public lands.
By and large my observation is that when we get into the energy
development field, the larger energy companies seem to be
pretty good about taking care of the developments that they
pursue. The ability of some of the smaller companies to do that
is questionable, based upon again observation.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK.
Mr. Keiter. In this instance, the law provides some backup
but it doesn't--it needs people available to enforce it.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
So, this goes back to the funding, to be able to follow and
be sure that those entities have left the same or better as
they found it when they were doing their projects.
Mr. Keiter. There generally are reclamation obligations
attached. But again, they're not always followed through on.
Mrs. Napolitano. Then also on page--the same one, you
talked about ESA. The Endangered Species Act protects Federally
listed species and their critical habitat but only applies when
listed species are present, and not always rigorously enforced.
Would you clarify that?
Mr. Keiter. The point I was trying to make there is that in
addition to the various Federal lands and the private lands
that make up the larger landscape, the Endangered Species Act
functions as something of an umbrella for protection across the
landscape so long as a Federally listed species is present. And
it serves to constrain the management decisions, both the
Federal land managers and private landowners. And this is
perhaps most obvious when you think about the Northwest Forest
Plan that was put in place back--what is it now, 15 or so years
ago. Driven in large part by the presence of several endangered
species, most prominently the Northern Spotted Owl. And it's
the presence of that species that then forces everyone together
to coordinate their management activities. In the absence of a
wide-ranging Federally listed species it is difficult
frequently to bring the diverse land management agencies and
landowners together for conservation management objectives.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, sometimes there are discussions in
Washington committees about ESA being responsible for a lot of
things, that they do not take endangered species that have now
been protected and have reached a level of--they should be
dropped off the list, in other words. Is there something there
that we need to start looking at?
Mr. Keiter. It seems to me that the criteria for listing a
species under the Endangered Species Act--and there are five of
them in the statute--are the same criteria for delisting a
species. And, by and large, I think that if applied fairly and
in an appropriate scientific manner, those are workable
standards. And we do have some examples of species coming off
of the list. We have some that have been controversial. But I
think by and large the basic standards that are there work
pretty well. And they've been refined sufficiently by agency
interpretation and judicial interpretation so most of the folks
know what the rules of the game are today.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, given a lot of what's been reported
that climate change is going to reduce a lot of these species
and there is a great thrust to continue protecting them,
whatever the cost, would--some people say--pit people versus
the ESA's list? What is it that Congress needs to do to be able
to address it and have a win-win, rather than an argument that
takes it to court and only attorneys win?
Mr. Keiter. A good question. There certainly has been
plenty of litigation under the Endangered Species Act. There
are several I would characterize them as sort of modest reform
proposals that have floated around in Congress over the last
decade roughly. And several of those make some sense to me. I
don't see the need for radical revision of the Endangered
Species Act. Some of the administrative changes that were put
in place during President Clinton's tenure that opened the door
for the creation of multiple species habitat conservation plans
alluded to in earlier testimony today provide a vehicle to get
people together for planning under the--to live with the
Endangered Species Act, it seems to have worked reasonably well
in most locations. So, I don't see a need for radical change.
The one thing I do allude to in my testimony that might be
helpful would be for Congress to come forth with an explicit
biodiversity conservation mandate for all of the Federal land
management and perhaps even water management agency as part of
their organic missions with the view that if they are proactive
in conserving biodiversity that will potentially guard against
later listing. And so if we can get out in front of the curve
and avoid the Federal listing and the sort of regulatory
mechanisms that come with it, I think we would be ahead of the
game. So, I would recommend that as something for the
Subcommittee to think about.
Mrs. Napolitano. Some might see the mandate as another
regulation on top of other regulations--but you're right, you
have a good point.
Ms. Watson, on page 3 of your testimony--in the second
paragraph--you talk about something I find very interesting--
the room-to-roam statement. In my area, we are at the other end
of the spectrum. And I've heard it in other testimony that
wildlife habitat is being encroached upon by development, and
so they're being pushed and there's not enough room for them to
roam. So, they're coming down to districts like mine because of
food scarcity and water scarcity. What is it that we can do
then? What's the impact? What it is that people need to
understand is a valuable lesson for us to learn about both
these things that are happening.
Ms. Watson. I think it's a really critical issue. And I
think we--in addition to having large core areas, in some
places we're finding aren't large enough, we need to not only
consider expansion of those areas where that's possible, but
also looking to the issues of corridors and how to manage for
migratory patterns and give wildlife the ability to move from
one large core area to another. I think that's something the
Western Governors' Association and other folks who have
testified have talked about in some detail--and that we
strongly support.
Mrs. Napolitano. But if there's not enough water, there's
not enough habitat, and the animals are coming down into
habitated areas to find food.
Ms. Watson. Right.
Mrs. Napolitano. So, how do we address the issue of them
being fed or balancing the ecosystem so they have their own
source of food in those quarters?
Ms. Watson. I think that it's a really challenging
question, particular as we think about the impacts of climate
change. And as that scenario becomes more likely where their
core habitat is so impacted that they need to move elsewhere, I
think really we need to study more of what is needed to not
only provide the resources in those core habitats but also
understand more where they're going to go, and certainly the
impacts on communities in California and elsewhere when that
happens. I don't think there is one answer, unfortunately. But
we look forward to working with the committee as this becomes
more and more an issue.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Cipra, I have heard especially in my
Subcommittee that the government owns a large amount of U.S.
Land; in other words, in California, maybe in Colorado, maybe
in Utah some, that they need to be able to sell off so that we
can have more economy. Kind of flies in the face of some of the
things that we talk about, adding to park land and conserving
land for future use. I have a great-grandson so I have a great
stake in this.
But a lot of it is owned by the conservancies and parks and
historical sites, et cetera. How do we counter some of those
challenges from some of the business community who would like
to see land opened, especially for logging and mining and all
those things?
Mr. Cipra. Well, I think it's important to recognize how
much our public lands contribute to our economy. And I think
that recognition is absolutely critical. And I don't think it's
a matter of countering an argument, I think it's a matter of
bringing folks in and recognizing that that's the life blood of
a lot of communities.
This park, for example, generates $45 million annually for
local communities. And I think when people recognize that,
they're supportive. And this park has a very good relationship,
for example, with the City of Twentynine Palms, with the town
of Yucca Valley, with Joshua Tree as well.
So, I think it's a matter of bringing people in and to
think about the public lands and wildlife corridors and
ecological linkages when we're creating those, when we're
establishing those. And for those to have long-term viability
you have to bring in stakeholders. You have to bring in people
who do own the private land in that area, and those people have
to be part of the process.
So, I would recommend full and open process and
partnerships between the parks and local communities.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, it's all right when it's local
communities. When outside come in and try to benefit from it
and the whole issue is, go in, dig it in, and leave it. And
that to me is a concern.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
And thank all the witnesses today. Very informative. And as
we go down the road in formation of this legislation, let me
first of all thank Mr. Jarvis. I think for me he crystallized
where I began with this process, which is the canary in the
mine in terms of climate change, that we had an opportunity
here, and I still see this as an opportunity to be very
effective, set some wonderful examples, about how to begin to
deal with this very vexing issue.
There are political minefields ahead of us. I know that.
But nevertheless I think that effort of protecting the very
precious resources of this nation is worth the walk.
With things today about resources, i.e., funding, those
good well-written gestures without the backbone of resources is
not going to do anything. An institutional agency mandate about
cooperation and shared responsibility and coordination on this
issue, and public land and water resources. We see it as a
critical core to climate change legislation, and our intent is
to work on it in a more detailed and specific manner as we go
forward.
I want to thank you very much. The key point today was
interagency cooperation. Another key point today, I think Mr.
Jarvis as well said, the park system and our public lands could
be in a leadership role on this issue, not only nationally but
internationally if we grip this question with the kind of
urgency that I think we should.
I want to thank everybody. The issues of adaptation,
restoration, linkages, and necessary mandates are all part of
the discussion in this legislation--as well as the funding. So,
I appreciate it. You've brought us farther than we were. And
we're very appreciative of that.
And the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, the Subcommittee was adjourned.]