Plan – Climate Change and Land Trusts

How Does Climate Change Affect Land Trusts?

Climate change is already here and these changes will accelerate in the coming years and decades. We cannot stop climate change, so we must plan for it. If you are just getting stared you can take this self assessment to get targeted tools to help you incorporate climate change considerations into your conservation management planning, or you can learn more below. The pages below address some frequently asked questions and provide additional resources to help you learn how climate change impacts affect your conservation objectives, plan to address these challenges, adopt adaptive management practices to reduce vulnerabilities and build resilience, and ultimately inspire others to take action to reduce risks to the lands we love and the communities they support.

• Why Plan for Climate Change? Small changes can lead to dramatic, ecosystem-wide consequences for plants and wildlife, habitats and ecological processes.

• Prepare for Climate Change – Climate change is a complex process with long-term implications for natural and cultural resources.

• Assess Vulnerability – Discover how to assess, plan for, and possibly reduce the vulnerability of priority species to climate change.

• Acknowledge Uncertainty – Explore two techniques — scenario planning and adaptive management — for anticipating and reducing the risk of uncertainty when planning for climate change.

• Develop Adaptive Easements – Flexibility, clarity, and long-term planning are just some of the ways land trusts can adapt conservation easements for greater resilience to climate change.

• Engage in Strategic Conservation –  Strategic Conservation is a process that produces tools to aid decision makers in identifying, prioritizing, pursuing, and protecting those specific tracts of land that will most effectively and efficiently achieve the land trust’s mission.

• Partner with Regional and Federal Groups to Expand Your Capacity and Impact – Federal, state and regional initiatives provide funding, resources and support to assist land trusts with climate change planning, management and public education projects.