Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Wildlife

Rich Schneider Author

06/08/2016 Added

178 Plays

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Seminar on Climate Change for the Climate Change Seminar for Elected Officials of the Nebraska Legislature - Ecosystems and Wildlife

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[00:00:00.163]I'm Rick Schneider with the
[00:00:01.487]Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
[00:00:03.461]and I run a program called the National Heritage Program
[00:00:06.410]and our work is on research on rare and endangered species'
[00:00:09.544]natural communities in Nebraska
[00:00:11.587]and our whole role is to provide the scientific foundation
[00:00:15.256]for doing conservation in the state.
[00:00:18.182]And I wanna thank Ken for this set up there,
[00:00:20.295]ten minutes is not nearly enough to go over
[00:00:21.735]this whole topic, so I'm just gonna
[00:00:23.058]hit on a couple highlights and then encourage you all
[00:00:25.845]to follow up further with additional people
[00:00:28.561]to get more information about this.
[00:00:31.301]So I wanna go over two things, one,
[00:00:33.995]just a brief sort of round table last fall,
[00:00:37.176]for wildlife and ecosystems
[00:00:42.006]and then hit on just four take home messages
[00:00:44.142]that came out of this whole event.
[00:00:48.647]And as a bit of background, about two years ago,
[00:00:52.629]the leaders of the conservation organizations
[00:00:55.648]and natural resource agencies in the state
[00:00:58.318]formed a group they call
[00:00:59.943]the Nebraska Conservation Round Table.
[00:01:04.425]So this is leaders of state and federal
[00:01:07.211]natural resource agencies, conservation NGO's,
[00:01:10.509]such as Autobahn, Ducks Unlimited,
[00:01:13.156]Pheasants Forever, the Nature Conservancy,
[00:01:16.430]and then some university representation.
[00:01:19.425]And this group, its role, or its mission, was to
[00:01:23.233]really sort of work on conservation issues in the state
[00:01:26.855]that are really too big for any one agency to take on alone
[00:01:30.710]and they identified five sort of major issues
[00:01:33.705]in conservation in the state.
[00:01:35.679]And one of those five was climate change,
[00:01:38.535]and then last April, a year ago April, excuse me,
[00:01:42.390]we held a one day climate change forum
[00:01:45.315]for this round table group of these leaders,
[00:01:48.659]and we wanted to discuss and identify issues
[00:01:52.235]with climate change that impact biodiversity,
[00:01:55.741]wildlife, and natural ecosystems and then begin to
[00:01:59.712]identify strategies and actions to address that threat,
[00:02:03.752]or those threats.
[00:02:07.188]So we had that one day workshop a year ago April
[00:02:09.859]and then last October in conjunction with the university,
[00:02:13.203]setting up this series of sector based round tables,
[00:02:16.291]which you're all aware of, we held a second one, so
[00:02:20.446]that really, that second one in October is a follow on
[00:02:23.837]to the first one and sort of built on
[00:02:25.950]what came of that first one.
[00:02:27.645]And in that second one in last October
[00:02:29.503]we had a larger expanded audience for that,
[00:02:32.382]we brought in more people,
[00:02:34.240]we had representatives from 25 different
[00:02:37.142]universities, non-profit conservation organizations,
[00:02:41.136]and state and federal agencies.
[00:02:43.505]So what came out of that, is a report, as you've seen,
[00:02:46.941]I think has been provided to you,
[00:02:48.590]I think there's copies up here.
[00:02:52.697]What came out and in that, we have a series of
[00:02:55.881]conservation goals, strategies, and actions
[00:02:58.946]to try to address climate change from the perspective
[00:03:01.941]of wildlife natural resources and ecosystems.
[00:03:07.096]So I'm not gonna go over that in any detail,
[00:03:09.000]that's in that document,
[00:03:10.695]you're welcome to read that.
[00:03:14.062]So what I want to do in the very limited time
[00:03:15.385]is hit on four sort of take home messages
[00:03:17.127]that came out of this year or so
[00:03:19.054]of discussions of the conservation community.
[00:03:24.226]The first, climate change is having substantial,
[00:03:28.064]well-documented impact on species and ecosystems.
[00:03:33.897]And those impacts are likely to increase substantially
[00:03:37.421]in the coming decades.
[00:03:40.858]Some species are gonna benefit from climate change,
[00:03:43.180]but by and large the impacts are going to be
[00:03:44.689]largely negative for ecosystems and species.
[00:03:50.819]And many in the conservation community
[00:03:52.886]view climate change as probably the greatest threat
[00:03:55.788]or challenge we face in conserving biodiversity
[00:03:59.318]going forward, we have many other threats, of course,
[00:04:02.429]most people are aware of, but this is gonna sort of
[00:04:04.519]trump everything and in face exacerbate
[00:04:06.330]many of our current threats to biodiversity and species.
[00:04:10.510]And as sort of an indication of that level of concern,
[00:04:14.364]all of the federal natural resource agencies
[00:04:16.872]and all of the national conservation organizations,
[00:04:19.682]NGO's, have initiatives to try to address climate change's
[00:04:22.863]impact on species and ecosystems, so it's a bid deal.
[00:04:29.225]So the impacts on species and ecosystems,
[00:04:32.220]I don't have time to go into that,
[00:04:33.985]there's a brief overview in the document itself,
[00:04:39.210]but there's a lot more information available.
[00:04:41.694]But I wanna mention one last thing on that
[00:04:44.179]before I go to point two, on the
[00:04:46.384]conservation round table group, when we identified
[00:04:50.494]a series of strategies and actions in October
[00:04:54.024]and also again at the first one in April,
[00:04:57.344]we also prioritized those, so everybody got to vote,
[00:05:00.270]and we identified the top priorities or actions
[00:05:02.731]out of six pages of actions that came out of that,
[00:05:06.400]and one of the top priority actions was to help to develop
[00:05:10.046]a statewide climate change response plan,
[00:05:12.437]which I think is what LR-455 is partly about,
[00:05:15.526]so there's a large community of experts out there
[00:05:18.823]who are willing to help you guys work on this,
[00:05:21.656]so again, ten minutes is not enough time to
[00:05:24.930]fill you in on all the background,
[00:05:27.112]but a lot of people are available to help out,
[00:05:29.156]as you move forward.
[00:05:30.817]Okay, take home message number two,
[00:05:33.487]the changes in ecosystems and species
[00:05:35.878]that are seeing or we're gonna see
[00:05:38.549]are not just going to affect hunters and anglers,
[00:05:42.008]bird watchers and tree huggers,
[00:05:44.075]it's going to affect everybody,
[00:05:45.422]so all society depends on a lot of things
[00:05:48.069]from the natural world, we depend on
[00:05:50.182]for food, fiber, and medicines to a large degree,
[00:05:53.363]the natural species, native species come into that.
[00:05:56.567]And there's a variety of ecosystem services
[00:05:59.168]which society depends on and gets a lot of value out of.
[00:06:03.069]Some of those include pollination of many of our crops,
[00:06:07.155]which come from native species,
[00:06:09.570]water purification, flood control,
[00:06:14.134]wetlands along rivers help with flood control,
[00:06:17.651]soil formation, there's a lot of these services
[00:06:20.739]that we currently depend on and get for free from nature.
[00:06:24.478]As species and ecosystems decline with climate change,
[00:06:28.642]we're gonna have to find ways to fill in those services
[00:06:32.784]and it's not going to be cheap.
[00:06:35.171]So there is a vested interest in all sectors of society
[00:06:39.234]in helping to ensure that species and ecosystems
[00:06:42.903]are able to adapt to climate change.
[00:06:45.782]So it's not just a small and narrow niche of people
[00:06:47.663]that are gonna be affected by
[00:06:49.335]what happens to the natural world.
[00:06:51.959]Take home message three,
[00:06:53.933]as the different sectors of society develop plans
[00:06:57.950]to try to adapt to climate change,
[00:07:00.643]it's important that they consider
[00:07:03.104]the effects of their actions on other sectors.
[00:07:06.285]We talked about this a fair bit last year,
[00:07:09.397]the groups that were setting up these sector round tables,
[00:07:11.487]and we talked about having a all-sector group
[00:07:14.923]to discuss those, so for example,
[00:07:17.454]water, key issue in Nebraska.
[00:07:19.707]It effects agriculture, it effects urban areas,
[00:07:22.934]it effects wildlife, obviously, all of our aquatic species
[00:07:25.558]are very dependent on water.
[00:07:27.718]But as our water resources change and become more limited,
[00:07:31.735]as is projected, then there's gonna be a lot of competition
[00:07:35.589]for a scarce resource and so strategies that one sector
[00:07:39.513]may take to try to adapt to that situation
[00:07:41.742]may negatively impact another sector.
[00:07:44.482]And conversely there can be synergies where things that
[00:07:47.594]one sector does can certainly benefit another.
[00:07:49.846]So in the conservation arena, wetlands are a great resource
[00:07:53.863]for helping absorb flood water and release it very slowly,
[00:07:56.951]so restoring wetlands along rivers can very much
[00:07:59.575]help out with increased flooding that we're going to see
[00:08:03.035]going forward with climate change.
[00:08:05.775]Okay and the fourth take home point,
[00:08:10.536]is that developing and implementing strategies
[00:08:12.973]to adapt to climate change is necessary
[00:08:15.760]but it's not sufficient.
[00:08:17.640]Okay, climate is changing, we have to adapt to it,
[00:08:21.425]but if climate change continues unabated,
[00:08:24.444]then those adaptation strategies are gonna become
[00:08:27.207]evermore expensive and ever less effective.
[00:08:30.644]So we have to not only adapt to the change that happens,
[00:08:34.568]we have to try to slow and stop that change,
[00:08:38.167]and so that of course comes into the arena.
[00:08:41.418]If we do see greenhouse gas emissions
[00:08:43.717]and levels in the atmosphere,
[00:08:45.620]and I think that was summed up really well
[00:08:49.098]by the international panel on climate,
[00:08:52.099]or governmental panel on climate change.
[00:08:54.537]In one of their recent reports they said,
[00:09:01.539]"We must learn to manage the unavoidable
[00:09:04.670]and we must avoid the unmanageable."
[00:09:07.526]So as this goes forward, with what the projections are,
[00:09:10.962]you heard about already this morning,
[00:09:12.982]it's going to get to the point where it's not manageable,
[00:09:14.538]so cannot go that far, so that was sort of
[00:09:17.650]the fourth take home message.
[00:09:19.879]That's my ten minutes, so I'm happy to take questions.
[00:09:25.662]Again, I didn't mean this to be,
[00:09:29.306]a thorough presentation but to give you a flavor
[00:09:32.185]of these round tables and then in the booklet that you got
[00:09:35.970]on the way in, is a more detailed discussion of that
[00:09:40.127]round table session.

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Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Wildlife

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