Adaptation in the Face of Climate Change: When Resistance is Futile Stewarding Ecological Transformation in the Anthropocene

Adaptation in the Face of Climate Change demonstrates climate change adaptation strategies that step beyond conventional land and species management, focused on facilitating ecological trajectories rather than static goals based on historical baselines. Current conservative approaches are too timid to address likely ecological outcomes of climate emission scenarios that have already been exceeded and are inadequate to ameliorate the 6th extinction. This book closely examines the commonalities and differences among three locations, spanning from Maryland, the Pacific Islands and Alaska, to highlight the idea that there are no optimal choices in a world of non-analog futures and disequilibrium, only reasonable ones that accommodate continual change. Based on real-world considerations, the book discusses the implementation of adaptation strategies in the face of political obstacles. This book is essential to anyone interested in effective climate change adaptation, such as Environmental Planners, Ecologists, Geographers, and Biologists.

• Features real world cases of successful adaptation to climate change across diverse ecosystems and species, including animal ecology, forest and coastal ecosystems
• Includes data on climate change and its impact on the environment has been incorporated in each example
• Provides an understanding of the types of socio-political constraints environmental managers face, with true examples of successfully navigating them in order create a positive environmental impacts

I. Prologue

II. Introduction a. Experiences which led me to embrace a different approach to conservation in a world in which man is the primary ecological driver What the Anthropocene Portends (making the case to do something drastically different) b. IPCC forecasts c. 6th extinction

III. Prospective Adaptation: When Resistance is Futile a. Review of adaptation to date in the U.S. (Primary author = Tracy Melvin, doctoral student, Michigan State University) b. What’s needed: Rewilding/rambunctious garden/ wilderness stewardship (Primary author = Dr. Dawn Magness, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, USFWS)

IV. Case Study 1 (animals): Translocating endemic birds to novel islands in the Pacific (Primary author = Fred Amidon, Pacific Islands Fish & Wildlife Field Office, USFWS) a. moving common endemic species (not ESA listed) to uninhabited islands in the Northern Marianas to escape invasives and protect against changing cyclonic regime b. Conceptual plans for moving endangered Hawaiian avifauna to the Big Island to allow colonization along an elevational gradient

V. Case Study 2 (plants): Facilitating ecological transformation on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska (Primary author = Dr. John Morton, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, USFWS) a. Reforestation or deforestation in response to an unprecedented spruce bark beetle epidemic and human-caused fires

VI. Case Study 3 (landscape): Strategic retreat from rising seas on the mid-Atlantic coast (PI = Dr. Court Stevenson, Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland) a. Allowing a tidal marsh in Southern Dorchester County, Maryland to retreat in response to increasing hurricane surges and saltwater intrusion (aka managing for diving ducks instead of dabbling duck) b. Allowing Assateague Island, a barrier island, to retreat in response to increasing sea-level rise and coastal erosion

VII. Synthesis of the 3 case studies (Morton et al.) a. What’s in common and what’s unique

VIII. Moving forward: What’s needed and who’s going to do it a. Recognition and acceptance of how bad it’s going to be b. Balancing social needs in an ecological framework c. Inadequate institutional framework for continental-scale adaptation d. Networked local adaptation

Environmental managers, natural resource managers, ecologists, biologists, geographers, environmental planners, urban planners, environmental policy makers; Secondary audience of anyone engaged in Climate Change Adaptation