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Protecting Wildlife Migration Corridors and Crucial Wildlife Habitat in the West
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BACKGROUND
1. Large intact and functioning ecosystems, healthy fish and wildlife populations, and abundant public access to natural landscapes are a significant contributing factor to the West's economic and in-migration boom as well as quality of life. Critical wildlife migration corridors and crucial wildlife habitats are necessary to maintain flourishing wildlife populations. .
2. The Western States are particularly and uniquely affected by activity occurring in wildlife migration corridors and crucial wildlife habitats. Western States must also contend with an inter-connected mixture of private, state and federal lands. Migration corridors cross all political boundaries and States need to protect migration corridors on federal land through various state planning documents.
3. Natural resource development, urban development, and maintenance of the existing infrastructures of the West impact wildlife species, their habitats and migration corridors. Western States are increasingly expending limited state funds to participate in federal public land resource management planning as a result of the growing national focus on energy production and independence. States continue to expend scarce funds to protect or mitigate impacts to wildlife resources by energy development.
4. States possess broad trustee, police powers and primacy over fish and wildlife within their borders. With the exception of marine mammals, states retain concurrent jurisdiction even where Congress has directed specific federal authority of fish and wildlife speci
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Pruiskma et al 1981.pdf
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Resources
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TRB Library
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PEK-RIC
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Public land, timber harvests, and climate mitigation: Quantifying carbon sequestration potential on U.S. public timberlands
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Scientists and policy makers have long recognized the role that forests can play in countering the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas (GHG). In the United States, terrestrial carbon sequestration in private and public forests offsets approximately 11% of all GHG emissions from all sectors of the economy on an annual basis. Although much of the attention on forest carbon sequestration strategy in the United States has been on the role of private lands, public forests in the United States represent approximately 20% of the U.S. timberland area and also hold a significantly large share (30%) of the U.S. timber volume. With such a large standing timber inventory, these forested lands have considerable impact on the U.S. forest carbon balance. To help decision makers understand the carbon implications of potential changes in public timberland management, we compared a baseline timber harvest scenario with two alternative harvest scenarios and estimated annual carbon stock changes associated with each. Our analysis found that a ‘‘no timber harvest’’ scenario eliminating harvests on public lands would result in an annual increase of 17–29 million metric tonnes of carbon (MMTC) per year between 2010 and 2050—as much as a 43% increase over current sequestration levels on public timberlands and would offset up to 1.5% of total U.S. GHG emissions. In contrast, moving to a more intense harvesting policy similar to that which prevailed in the 1980s may result in annual carbon losses of 27–35 MMTC per year between 2010 and 2050. These losses would represent a significant decline (50–80%) in anticipated carbon sequestration associated with the existing timber harvest policies. If carbon sequestration were valued in the marketplace as part of a GHG offset program, the economic value of sequestered carbon on public lands could be substantial relative to timber harvest revenues.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Public land, timber harvests, and climate mitigation: Quantifying carbon sequestration potential on U.S. public timberlands
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Scientists and policy makers have long recognized the role that forests can play in countering the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas (GHG). In the United States, terrestrial carbon sequestration in private and public forests offsets approximately 11% of all GHG emissions from all sectors of the economy on an annual basis. Although much of the attention on forest carbon sequestration strategy in the United States has been on the role of private lands, public forests in the United States represent approximately 20% of the U.S. timberland area and also hold a significantly large share (30%) of the U.S. timber volume. With such a large standing timber inventory, these forested lands have considerable impact on the U.S. forest carbon balance. To help decision makers understand the carbon implications of potential changes in public timberland management, we compared a baseline timber harvest scenario with two alternative harvest scenarios and estimated annual carbon stock changes associated with each. Our analysis found that a ‘‘no timber harvest’’ scenario eliminating harvests on public lands would result in an annual increase of 17–29 million metric tonnes of carbon (MMTC) per year between 2010 and 2050—as much as a 43% increase over current sequestration levels on public timberlands and would offset up to 1.5% of total U.S. GHG emissions. In contrast, moving to a more intense harvesting policy similar to that which prevailed in the 1980s may result in annual carbon losses of 27–35 MMTC per year between 2010 and 2050. These losses would represent a significant decline (50–80%) in anticipated carbon sequestration associated with the existing timber harvest policies. If carbon sequestration were valued in the marketplace as part of a GHG offset program, the economic value of sequestered carbon on public lands could be substantial relative to timber harvest revenues. Public timberland; Forestry; Climate change; Carbon sequestration
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Climate Science Documents
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Public Safety
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Public safety during and after a wildfire can be challenging, particularly as many people are separated from their usual forms of communication. These resources can help you not only communicate necessary information to the public, but do so in a way that will be useful to them.
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Wildfire
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Publications, fact sheets, training materials
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Browse published training materials, including reports and factsheets, on wildland fire and prescribed burning
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Training
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Publications, fact sheets, training materials
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Published training materials, including reports and fact sheets, on wildland fire and prescribed burning
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Training
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Published materials
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Information Materials
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Published Materials
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Resources
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Published Materials
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Resources
