Dear Fellow Ecologists, Over the course of the 21st century, global climate change will likely become the single largest cause of biodiversity loss in the world. Determining how to manage ecosystems undergoing rapid climate change in order to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem function is a scientific challenge to ecologists of unparalleled complexity and importance. Careful synthesis of diverse ecological sub-disciplines will be required to meet this challenge. In the coming decades, essentially all ecologists will be climate change ecologists.
As a result of AB 32, policy makers in California have recently drafted a strategy to help ecosystems adapt to climate change. The plan will provide the fundamental architecture for Californias ecological climate change adaptation efforts in the coming decades, and will likely become a template for other western states as they begin their climate change adaptation efforts in coming years. The biodiversity strategy is currently in a draft form written by state agency personnel with comments from nonprofit stakeholders, and is open to public comment on December 5, 2008. Unfortunately, little input from the greater ecological scientific community was solicited in the drafting of this strategy, despite the scientific complexity of the topic. The biodiversity climate change adaptation strategy currently being drafted in California may prove to be one of the most influential policies for protecting biodiversity in the coming century. It will not likely be effective, however, without guidance from expert ecologists and incorporation of the best available science. It is crucially important that the voice of the scientific community be heard at the December 5th public comments meeting. As an ecologist you are invited to review the strategy yourself and form your own comments to share with the agencies. A readily apparent problem with the current version of the strategy is the misuse of the term ecological resilience, and consequently ill-defined objectives. At this time the primary document you need to review is called Strategies (Water, Biodiversity/Habitat, Forestry) from the September 11th stakeholders meeting page; the agencies are supposed to post a revised version of this document that incorporates the stakeholders comments before the public hearing on December 5th, but had not yet done so at the time this message was written two weeks before the meeting. They have promised to post it early in the week of November 24th, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. The agencies also left the stakeholder participant list for the biodiversity strategy blank on their website so we do not know which scientists have already given input. Following the steps below will help maximize the effectiveness of your participation in this process. 1) Read the strategy yourself the first web address is for the currently available version from the September 11th meeting, the second is where the revised strategy is supposed to be posted early in the week of November 24th. http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/adaptation/meetings/index.html#091108 http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/adaptation/biodiversity/index.html 2) Develop your own comments these may be in-depth comments based upon your expertise, or the simple statement that you think the scientific community needs to be more explicitly involved. 3) Attend the public meeting either in person or by telephone and share you comments Dec. 5th, 1-4 pm, Resources Agency Auditorium, 1416 9th Street, Sacramento, CA Conference Call: (916) 657-4113, http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/adaptation/biodiversity/index.html 4) Email your comments to the following contact people at the state of California on or before December 5th Richard Rayburn, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Amber Pairis, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5) CC the email of your comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - a consolidated record of the comments from ecologists might prove very informative. 6) To go http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/adaptation/and enter you email address in the side bar to be added to the state of Californias climate change adaptations list server so you will be kept informed of future policy developments. 7) Consider posting your comments on ECOLOG to stimulate discussion among the ecological community Please forward this message to any of your colleagues, students, or professors who may be interested. The goal is to get as many ecologists as possible attending the public meeting on December 5th and saying more input from scientists needs to be incorporated into Californias climate change adaptation strategy. Even if you cannot attend the meeting, please do email your comments to the agencies. This may be the most important thing you do to protect biodiversity all day! Thank you, Mary C. Orland, Ph.D.
