Preparing for Climate Change: Conserving Virginia's Fish and Wildlife for the Future

National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Virginia Conservation Network (VCN), and Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) are working together to update Virginia’s Wildlife Action Plan to integrate climate change.

Virginia was one the first states to focus on safeguarding wildlife and habitats from climate change using state wildlife action plans as a framework. The effort being taken by NWF, VCN, and VDGIF will serve to inform other states starting or implementing a similar process.

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As a part of this work, NWF, VCN, and VDGIF hosted 2 workshops entitled Conserving Virginia’s Fish and Wildlife for the Future: Preparing for a Changing Climate on October 30, 2008. Both workshops brought together leaders from state and federal agencies, conservation organizations, communities, and the private sector to initiate a participatory process to develop strategies to adapt Virginia’s wildlife management, planning, and conservation efforts to climate change. This process will allow for the state’s Wildlife Action Plan to be updated to integrate climate change and wildlife adaptation strategies. The first workshop, held on October 30, 2008 in Wakefield, Virginia, focused on likely impacts climate change will have on Virginia’s fish and wildlife and determine how we can adapt our conservation efforts in light of these changing conditions. Through sessions in the afternoon, participants discussed key issues and vulnerabilities of the state’s fish and wildlife to global warming, and identified priorities for Virginia.

The second workshop held March 10, 2009 at Sweet Briar College in Lynchburg, Virginia, built on three main areas of concern relating to climate change and wildlife identified at the first workshop: specific ecological and wildlife-related concerns, education and outreach-related concerns, and modeling and data concerns. Through targeted sessions in the afternoon, participants provided feedback on draft strategies to protect wildlife from climate change in Virginia, provided feedback on an outreach strategy that includes messaging techniques and outreach tools, and discussed existing conservation management tools and identify additional needs given a changing climate.

The level of engagement of the participants indicated a great degree of interest in the issue of safeguarding wildlife from climate change as well as the willingness to move forward on taking actions to protect wildlife from climate change. The culmination of the two workshops will be a companion document to Virginia’s Wildlife Action Plan that will help the state begin addressing climate change as it implements the plan.

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Conservation Network, and National Wildlife Federation are excited to provide you with an electronic version of the published Virginia’s Strategy to Protect Species of Greatest Conservation Need from Climate Change. The strategy outlines steps that VDGIF and conservation partners can take to begin addressing the impacts of climate change on species of greatest conservation need and their habitats. The strategy focuses not only on conservation actions, but also on education and outreach.

We also have an online brochure that we developed based on the strategy. It highlights actions that can be taken to make Virginia’s species and habitats more resilient to climate change. This brochure is a great outreach tool. We have a limited amount of printed brochures. If you are interested in having copies for your organization to make available at events, then please email Chris Burkett at Chris.Burkett@dgif.virginia.gov. They also can be printed on 11x17 paper.