National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change
The many benefits we receive from forests and grasslands- clean drinking water, wildlife and aquatic habitat, outdoor recreation, and aesthetic enjoyment, to name only a few - are threatened by climate change.
In June 2010, the USDA released its Strategic Plan for 2010-2015 to guide its Agencies, including the strategic goal to "ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources." One objective of this goal is for all national forests to come into compliance with a climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy. To guide the Forest Service in achieving this goal, the Agency developed the National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change.
The roadmap builds on the Strategic Framework for Responding to Climate Change released by the Forest Service in October 2008, which outlined approaches and guiding principles for integrating climate change into all Agency activities. The roadmap focuses on three kinds of activities: assessing current risks, vulnerabilities, policies, and gaps in knowledge; engaging partners in seeking solutions and learning from as well as educating the public and employees on climate change issues; and managing for resilience, in ecosystems as well as in human communities, through adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable consumption strategies.
To measure progress towards these goals the Forest Service implemented a Performance Scorecard.
To download or read the entire roadmap document, go to www.fs.fed.us/climatechange/pdf/Roadmapfinal.pdf.
