Smog from a coal-fired power plant near Shiprock, New Mexico. © Jane Pargiter/EcoFlight
Climate change is one of the most significant threats to biodiversity around the world. Our Climate Change Campaign aims to reduce our region’s carbon emissions by stopping or improving inappropriate, poorly planned, or unnecessary energy development projects on public land. This means stopping inappropriate leasing of public lands for oil and gas drilling, especially in habitat for at-risk wildlife, as well as halting or mitigating high impact development projects like uranium mines, oil shale experiments, and gas well field projects.
We work to minimize the effects of climate change on high-altitude species like lynx. © Colorado Department of Natural Resources
We minimize the effects of climate change on the most at-risk wildlife and native plants and give them a fighting chance to survive the coming changes. We help land and wildlife managers plan for climate change and support wildlife adaptation to the altered world they will inhabit in the future. Endangered species are at a greater risk from climate change due to their small population sizes and often limited remaining habitat. To maximize their chances for long-term survival, we must maximize their available habitat, minimize the other threats to their survival, and grant them the most enforceable and long-term protections available, including Endangered Species Act protection. While we can already identify some of the most likely “first victims” in our region, high-alpine natives like the Canada lynx, pika, and marmot, we are also working to collect existing research on other species in the region affected by climate change and develop a prioritized list of species and locations to focus on over the next several years.
As a key strategy in protecting the maximum available habitat for at-risk species, we focus on preserving wildlife corridors across the landscape of the Southern Rockies. Preserving and restoring landscape linkages between core wildlife habitats areas will play an important role in supporting the ability of species to move uninhibited across the landscape in response to habitat shifts caused by a changing climate.
Planning for Wildlife Adaptation: the State Wildlife Action Plans and Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Over the coming years, we will be working in partnership with the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and others to predict shifts in the natural ranges for native species and to develop strategies to support their adaptation to climate change. We will help the state of Colorado update its State Wildlife Action Plan to address climate change and help the Fish and Wildlife Service through its regional Landscape Conservation Cooperatives to plan for adaptation on a regional scale.
Doing Renewable Energy Development Right from the Start
An important part of reducing the carbon emissions problem is rapidly converting to renewable energy sources. However, we must do so in a way that does not damage important habitats for native wildlife and plants. We cannot wreck our region’s outstanding landscapes and unique ecological communities in order to save them. Therefore, we are working with local and regional partners to ensure that the conversion to renewable energy is done right. We are helping to improve proposals for local renewable energy facilities by ensuring they only cause minimal impact to sensitive critters and places.
