[MCN] Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act

[Lance Olsen]

Montana Public Radio's Edward O'Brien interviewed 
the spokeswoman for the Montana Logging 
Association, which opposes the Northern Rockies 
Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA). She said NREPA 
is based on science that's now 24 years old -- 
she specifically referred to the science that 
points to the importance of "connectivity" 
between areas like the Greater Yellowstone 
Ecosystem and the ecosystem comprised of Glacier 
National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. 
She also said that science can change

It's true that NREPA did some pioneering toward 
establishing "connectivity" between areas of high 
regional importance to wildlife, and that it was 
based on the science of the day.

And yes, science can change, and yes again, the 
scientific record of evidence on connectivity 
between fragments of wild areas has indeed 
changed. One major change is that the scientific 
consensus on connectivity has grown. In the 
intervening 20+ years, the importance of 
connectivity has been recognized and supported 
even more strongly than it was when NREPA wrote 
it into formal legislation. Another major change 
in science is that connectivity between natural 
areas has been found essential to wildlife 
conservation in a time of climate change.

As a matter of fact, it was only this month that 
20+ years of consensus on connectivity showed up 
in a global heavyweight of science -- America's 
own National Academies of Science. In this latest 
report, it also becomes apparent that the best 
hope for establishing connectivity is in the 
West, which of course includes the area covered 
by NREPA.

  See for yourself how the importance of 
connectivity was endorsed by scientific consensus 
within days of the MLA spokeswoman's dismissive 
remarks.

PNAS -Early Edition doi: 10.1073/pnas.1602817113

Achieving climate connectivity in a fragmented landscape
Jenny L. McGuire etal

Keywords
climate connectivity - climate change - habitat fragmentation - corridors

Bold emphasis added

Significance
Many plants and animals will need to move large 
distances to track preferred climates, but 
fragmentation and barriers limit their movements. 
We asked to what degree and where species will be 
able to track suitable climates. We demonstrate 
that only 41% of US natural land area is 
currently connected enough to allow species to 
track preferred temperatures as the planet warms 
over the next 100 years. If corridors allowed 
movement between all natural areas, species 
living in 65% of natural area could track their 
current climates, allowing them to adjust to 2.7 
°C more temperature change.  Facilitating 
movement will be crucial for preventing 
biodiversity losses.

Abstract
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1602817113.abstract

The contiguous United States contains a 
disconnected patchwork of natural lands. This 
fragmentation by human activities limits species' 
ability to track suitable climates as they 
rapidly shift. However, most models that project 
species movement needs have not examined where 
fragmentation will limit those movements. Here, 
we quantify climate connectivity, the capacity of 
landscape configuration to allow species movement 
in the face of dynamically shifting climate. 
Using this metric, we assess to what extent 
habitat fragmentation will limit species 
movements in response to climate change. We then 
evaluate how creating corridors to promote 
climate connectivity could potentially mitigate 
these restrictions, and we assess where 
strategies to increase connectivity will be most 
beneficial. By analyzing fragmentation patterns 
across the contiguous United States, we 
demonstrate that only 41% of natural land area 
retains enough connectivity to allow plants and 
animals to maintain climatic parity as the 
climate warms. In the eastern United States, less 
than 2% of natural area is sufficiently 
connected. Introducing corridors to facilitate 
movement through human-dominated regions 
increases the percentage of climatically 
connected natural area to 65%, with the most 
impactful gains in low-elevation regions, 
particularly in the southeastern United States. 
These climate connectivity analyses allow 
ecologists and conservation practitioners to 
determine the most effective regions for 
increasing connectivity. More importantly, our 
findings demonstrate that increasing climate 
connectivity is critical for allowing species to 
track rapidly changing climates, reconfiguring 
habitats to promote access to suitable climates.
                

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###################   I have the PDF  ##########################

"Scholars and commentators have recently begun to 
highlight how multiple, simultaneous, and 
interacting global stresses, such as demographic 
pressure, climate change, resource scarcities, 
and financial instability, are increasing global 
systemic risk (Beddington 2009, OECD 2011, WEF 
2012, Helbing 2013, Pamlin and Armstrong 2015).

"They often describe the situation that humanity 
faces now and in coming decades as a "perfect 
storm" of simultaneous crises (Sample 2009, Ahmed 
2011, Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2013, Morgan 2013). 
Although evocative, this phrase implies that the 
crises align solely by chance. We argue rather 
that their simultaneity is a manifestation of an 
underlying causal pattern that is becoming more 
prevalent, and we elaborate a conceptual 
framework that provisionally describes this 
pattern."

Homer-Dixon, T., B. Walker, R. Biggs, A.-S. 
Crépin, C. Folke, E. F. Lambin, G. D. Peterson, 
J. Rockström, M. Scheffer, W. Steffen, and M. 
Troell. 2015. Synchronous failure: the emerging 
causal architecture of global crisis. Ecology and 
Society 20(3): 6.
http://dx.doi. org/10.5751/ES-07681-200306











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