Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Karla Dutton, Alaska Program Director

(c)Joan Cambray

I recently attended the 11th Alaska Marine Science Symposium (AMSS) in Anchorage. This year, the AMSS brought together almost 1,000 marine science researchers, educators, students and policy folks like me from Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and other Arctic regions to learn the latest in the fields of climate, oceanography, the benthos (collection of organisms living on or in the sea bottom), fish, seabirds, marine mammals and local and traditional knowledge. The week-long symposium presentations were grouped in three marine regions: the Gulf of Alaska, the Arctic and the Bering Sea.

We heard from several leading scientists and researchers about how small marine animals (lower on the food chain) are changing, and how that change is (and will likely continue to) impact marine mammals. Dr. Jeremy Mathis, who works for the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab and the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, provided the keynote address.  He told us that glacial melt (water from melting glaciers into coastal areas) is mixing with seawater, resulting in lower levels of oxygen and higher rates of carbon dioxide (CO2) in seawater, which makes it more acidic. As the planet warms in Arctic regions that contain glaciers, we can expect to see more glacial melt, lower oxygen and higher CO2 levels in the ocean, and that means increasing ocean acidification.

Sea butterfly (c)USGS

Because of Dr. Mathis’s work and others, we know that some marine organisms are sensitive to changes in acidity and lower pH can affect these organisms’ ability to survive, build shells and reproduce. The ones we need to be concerned about are called pteropods. These are small marine gastropod mollusks – sea snails that can swim, with winglike lobes on their feet giving them the nickname “sea butterflies.” These animals are also sensitive to ocean acidification — when the pH of the water is low enough, the acidic water dissolves their shells, slowly killing them. Why do we care? Because these tiny creatures are the building blocks of the food web in the region. All kinds of organisms eat them, from tiny krill to fish to whales. And other animals like seals (primary prey for polar bears) rely on the fish that eat the pteropods. These “sea butterflies” are also a major food source for North Pacific juvenile salmon, which we humans enjoy.  Pteropods may be tiny, but their importance can’t be overstated – many species rely on them in one way or another.

To help marine mammal species survive the impacts of climate change, we must understand their food chain better, and that means learning how organisms like pteropods live, and how changes in their marine environment are affecting these tiny but important marine animals.

Defenders’ Alaska office continues to ensure that climate change data collection, modeling and decision-making always take the impacts to wildlife into consideration. We have served on the USFWS Connecting the Landscapes effort to use climate change models to better predict what land areas will be important to wildlife and plants as they navigate changing habitats. We also participated in the Governor’s Sub-Cabinet for Climate Change natural systems working group, which focused on preparing guidelines for wildlife and fish that are being impacted by a changing climate. And moving forward, we’re working to protect necessary habitat for polar bears, walrus and other wildlife as climate change continues to affect the landscape.

Learn more about how climate change is affecting the Arctic food chain in this article from the latest issue of Defenders magazine: The Heat Is On

Jamie Rappaport Clark, President & CEO

Hurricane Sandy From space (c)NASA

President Obama has made it clear that he’s setting his sights on climate change in his second term.  In his State of the Union address, he said that “for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.”  He went on to acknowledge the weather disasters of 2012 and challenged Congress to act, echoing his inaugural speech: “We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science and act before it’s too late.”

The president vowed that “if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” and promised to create “executive actions…to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”  With this speech, President Obama is poised to begin a second term that makes a difference in the fight against climate change.

Although there were many lost opportunities for responding to climate change during Obama’s first term, there also were some quiet success stories involving a series of initiatives to make our nation and natural resources more resilient to the impacts of climate change.  Early on, President Obama established the Interagency Climate Adaptation Task Force, which has expanded coordination on wildlife and plant adaptation issues and raised the level of attention on adaptation throughout the federal government.  The administration also published a national strategy for managing freshwater resources in response to climate change, and a landmark draft national wildlife adaptation strategy for making wildlife and ecosystems more resilient to climate impacts (the final strategy is still pending).  Finally, the president advanced solar, wind and other renewable energies and significantly raised fuel emissions standards for automobiles.

These initiatives, however, remained in the shadows in fear of Congressional and electoral attacks and have yet to change agency programs on the ground at the scale needed to combat the problem.  But with the climate reality of record-setting storms, wildfires, droughts, floods and heat waves, the president needs to take his gloves off and combat these issues head on and in public.

It’s time for the president to take the next steps in an aggressive approach that addresses the emissions that cause climate change and proactively prepares for the impacts we are already facing:

Development in flood-prone areas puts wetland ecosystems in danger.

Rebuild and Restore, Responsibly.  After a major weather disaster, the pressure is on to repair damage quickly.  But quick shouldn’t mean rash.  Some response efforts can harm natural systems and make things worse like when earth-moving or building seawalls after flooding damages wetlands.  But as Defenders of Wildlife showed in our Harnessing Nature report, many natural areas such as wetlands, dunes and forests are themselves effective buffers against extreme weather.  We should be managing them strategically to make them as resilient as possible, whether there’s been a recent extreme weather event or not.

Factor it in.  We’ve heard it over and over again: climate change is affecting us now, and it’s not going away any time soon.  But even though the administration has released high-level adaptation policies, many federal agencies still aren’t accounting for climate change when planning their programs.  Future storms, flooding and fires will be more frequent and severe than what we’ve seen recently.  Accepting and planning for climate change now won’t just save time, money and property later.  It could also save human lives and mean the difference between survival and extinction for many wildlife species.

Bring it all together.  Information about climate change science can be fragmented and hard to access for the public and lawmakers alike.  We need to create a “one-stop shop” for climate change information that collects the latest data and analysis, presents it in a way that’s accurate and easy to understand for decision makers and the public and conveys it through all types of media: TV, radio, publications and the web.

Connect it.  Climate change is forcing wildlife from their traditional ranges. Species are on the move, but we have fragmented the landscape with our roads, houses, industrial areas, farm fields and fences.  We need to protect more wildlife habitat and make sure it is connected to allow species to respond to climate impacts and shift to more hospitable habitat.  These natural areas will in turn provide us with clean water, flood protection, replenishment of our groundwater, open space and recreation.

President Obama says he is committed to facing these issues.  Now he has the opportunity to make good on this promise.

President Obama surprised many people when he said last week in his inaugural address: “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.”

Oiled debris field in Sheepshead Bay, NY. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Lally.

“Powerful storms,” of course calls to mind Hurricane Sandy, the October super-storm that swept away our illusions that if we ignore climate change, it will go away. And this week, we are pleased to report that Congress finally acted to fund recovery in the areas so hard hit by that storm.

The $50 billion relief bill is important to Defenders’ priorities because it recognizes that restoring and rebuilding our natural infrastructure is just as important to our communities as rebuilding our roads, homes and businesses. We have long known that natural wetlands, dunes, forests and floodplains can absorb some of the impact from a major storm, thereby protecting communities from the ravages of winds and flooding. But the Sandy supplemental makes a historic commitment to restoring and preserving coastal areas as part of a comprehensive plan to prevent future storm damage.  (See our previous blog for details on the contents of the bill.)

It remains to be seen whether 2013 will mark the point where we finally embark on the road to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the “path towards sustainable energy sources” that the president spoke of last week. That will be the real key to reducing the risk of more billion-dollar weather disasters in the future. By providing the funding  to increase resiliency by harnessing the protective power of restored ecosystems, Congress has at least taken a step in the right direction.

Haley McKey, Communications Associate

Storm surge damage at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (Credit: USFWS Northeast)

This past Tuesday, the House voted on the $50.4 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill.  The outcome?  Results are mixed, but overall, we were pleased to see that there’s good news for both wildlife and people thanks to Representative Frelinghuysen.

The Sandy hurricane supplemental bill (H.R. 152) originally slated for the House floor left out many of the forward-thinking provisions the administration and the Senate’s relief bill proposed for restoring coastal ecosystems.  But Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) saw the need to keep these provisions, and introduced an amendment restoring most of them to the bill.

His amendment included the full amount of much-needed funding that the Obama administration requested for repairs and restoration at national wildlife refuges.  The storm cost our refuges a total of $78 million in damages from flooding, erosion, and debris, 16% of the National Wildlife Refuge System’s total budget.  Unfortunately, nearly $10 million of this funding that would have gone to repairing damage on the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Connecticut was subsequently stripped by an amendment offered by Rep. John Fleming (R-LA).

The Frelinghysen amendment also provides the National Park Service with $348 million to repair damages that occurred on national parks.  The USDA will get funding for restoration and repair to private property: a total of $203 million for restoring damaged farmland and forestland and reducing flood risks.

In addition, the amendment provides a crucial $360 million to Department of the Interior programs to “increase the resiliency and capacity of coastal habitat and infrastructure to withstand future storms and reduce the amount of damage caused by such storms.”  The Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and other programs will all be included.  Restoration will also be funded through grants and cooperative agreements with states, tribes and municipalities.

Finally, it gives $2.9 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers for planning and constructing flood-reducing projects that support the long-term sustainability of coastal ecosystems.  It also sets down some new ground rules: the amendment requires the Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider projects that were authorized before Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events.  These and all future project plans must take current scientific projections of climate-related risks into account.  This is a big step towards making climate planning a part of all building decisions, and will help ensure the success of future projects.

However, the House also passed two other amendments which aren’t so beneficial.   An amendment offered by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) prohibits use of any funds in the bill for land acquisition, which prevents the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA from using these funds to acquire flood-prone habitat to act as a buffer to protect communities.  An amendment offered by Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) also passed, cutting $150 million in coastal funding that could have gone towards improving the quality and resilience of marine wildlife habitat.

Fortunately the House wisely voted down the disastrous amendment offered by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), which called for offsetting $17 billion of the funds in the bill with discretionary funding cuts across the board.  The amendment would have forced cuts in important environmental programs, already underfunded, forcing these programs to scrape by even more and even eliminate essential activities.  Overall, the Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill passed by the House is a forward-looking and ground-breaking piece of legislation that will address important issues like preventing future flood damage, repairing damaged areas in refuges and parks, restoring habitat and helping wildlife adapt to climate change.

Daniel Thornhill, Coral Reef Marine Scientist

©Richard Ling

Whether it’s polar bears losing their icy habitats in the Arctic or corals bleaching in the tropics, climate change has drastically disrupted the lives of wildlife throughout the world. As our global climate continues to warm, wildlife species will respond with a “MAAD” set of options. Some will Move to a new home where conditions are less stressful. Others will adjust the way they live to Acclimate to the new conditions. Across generations, wildlife populations may even Adapt to the changing planet through natural selection. Too often when these responses are not an option, wildlife will Die as a result of climate change.

These changes are already happening on coral reefs. Reefs are home to more species than any other marine habitat on our planet, but this diverse environment is incredibly fragile. Reef-building corals — the very foundation of these shallow ocean ecosystems — are a delicate partnership between the coral polyps and microscopic algae. When temperatures become too hot, this partnership falls apart — a problem known as coral bleaching. Bleaching causes corals to starve, sicken and eventually die. This has already caused massive die-offs of corals throughout the world, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to propose 66 species of corals as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act.

Despite this grim forecast, death is not the only option for corals. Recently, my colleagues and I investigated how corals respond to climate change. One of our findings is that average yearly temperature determined the northern limits of a coral’s range; if temperatures were too cold, corals could not grow. This is a bit of good news for corals — as warm temperatures push coral reefs away from the equator, many coral species will be able to shift north (or south in the Southern Hemisphere) from one generation to the next. Of course, other conditions must be right in order for this to happen. There must be enough light for the corals’ microscopic algae to thrive, hard surfaces for corals to attach themselves to, currents to move coral offspring to new places, and enough of the dissolved components of seawater that corals need to build their skeletons.

©Toby Hudson

We will need to take action on many levels to address climate change, from lowering greenhouse gas emissions  to planning ahead for a warmer world. Determining where wildlife can live helps us understand both how animals will naturally respond to climate change, and how we can give them the best chance at survival in an era of rising temperatures. Our study is an initial step in understanding these responses in corals.

Coral reefs are huge, immobile structures, but the corals that build them aren’t so static from one generation to the next. If we take action on climate change and learn what reefs need to survive, we can protect corals for generations to come.

Noah Matson, Vice President of Landscape Conservation and Climate Adaptation

Storm damage in New Jersey

When Superstorm Sandy swept ashore in late October, it left an almost unimaginable level of damage: thousands of residents still displaced, entire communities destroyed and an economic toll that promises to make Sandy one of the costliest natural disasters in history. But it also swept away our illusions that we can carry on with business as usual in a changing climate.

Sandy exposed incredible vulnerabilities to coastal storms and floods in the region. While the storm was unprecedented, the effects of climate change, namely higher sea levels and larger storms, mean that we can no longer operate as if a recurrence is only a remote possibility.  It’s clear that we cannot simply rebuild; we must also rethink the way we approach recovery efforts, and begin to prepare for future extreme weather events and sea level rise by rebuilding in a way that makes us less vulnerable to future damage.

Defenders of Wildlife has argued that in many cases, this will require restoring and enhancing natural ecosystems that provide flood control and storm surge attenuation while also providing other benefits including clean water, wildlife habitat, and economic and recreational opportunities.  Our publication “Harnessing Nature,” published earlier this year, describes several of these projects and the benefits they can provide.

After a disaster of Sandy’s magnitude, the need for federal assistance to help the region recover could not be more apparent or more urgent. The U.S. Senate has responded by putting forth a $60 billion emergency funding bill, and we are pleased to see that it shows tremendous foresight in its recognition of the role that coastal ecosystems can play in protecting communities from weather-related disasters. The funding bill helps accomplish this by providing:

Storm surge damage at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (Credit: USFWS Northeast)

•    $78 million to restore and repair national wildlife refuges.  Thirty-five refuges were closed following the storm and some still remain closed. The overall damage to refuges was equivalent to 16% of the System’s overall annual budget – but would’ve been much worse if not for the natural protection provided by refuge wetlands and dunes. These funds will help shore up these natural defenses and repair facilities so that visitors can return.

•    Nearly $350 million to restore and protect coastal and estuarine habitats, like dunes and salt marshes. Habitat restoration in coastal areas will help buffer communities from storms and recover fisheries- and coastal habitat-based economies. Some of this money will allow acquisition or easements of important natural areas, so they are protected from development and can continue to provide flood and storm protection benefits to communities in addition to their ecological, recreational and economic value.

•    $125 million to help restore and protect storm-abating wetlands on farmland land and other private lands.  This program provides funding to remove debris from stream channels, stabilize stream banks and restore damaged uplands stripped of protective vegetative cover, thus reducing flood risk. The program also funds easements to reduce development along river floodplains, reducing risk to people and property while also conserving habitat and improving water quality.

•    Funds to plan and construct flood-reducing projects that support the long-term sustainability of coastal ecosystems: This money will help different agencies work together to identify people and places that are vulnerable to flooding. It also provides $2.9 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers to “reduce future flood risk in ways that will support the long-term sustainability of the coastal ecosystem and communities.”  The bill also requires the Army Corps to reevaluate previously authorized projects in light of recent extreme weather events, as well as scientific projections of future climate-related risks.

The general provisions of the funding bill also require federal agencies to plan for future risks of increased extreme weather events and sea level rise in all recovery efforts. This is really a paradigm shift that could get the country on the road to re-thinking instead of just rebuilding.

Before and after images of flood damage from Hurricane Sandy at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge (Credit: USFWS)

Unfortunately, as is common with these kinds of “must-pass bills,” a few bad provisions have been slipped in. We strongly oppose two measures that would limit environmental review and public participation, which may lead to poor planning, communities more vulnerable to disaster risks and many other concerns:

•    The bill authorizes any Army Corps flood protection project that is under study (i.e. any project throughout the nation that was begun before Hurricane Sandy) provided that the Corps demonstrates the project is cost-effective. This would allow projects to move forward even if they have serious environmental problems, like impacts to endangered wildlife.

•    It also unnecessarily implements “streamlining” that would allow circumventing environmental laws when providing disaster assistance. The individual laws in question (The Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act) already include emergency provisions that allow for expedited reviews and procedural changes to protect human health and safety in response to disasters and emergencies. There is no need to open the door to blanket waivers of environmental laws.

We believe this essential funding will provide much-needed relief to the victims of this devastating hurricane.  If Congress retains the forward-thinking provisions and strikes the ones that waive public interest requirements, we’ll get a bill that will not only help the region recover, but will also reduce its vulnerabilities to future extreme climate-related events and the enormous loss of lives and livelihoods these events bring.