Conservationists for Climate Solutions

We are 41 hunting, fishing, outdoor recreation, landowner, and conservation groups aligned to advance climate solutions for #OurLandWaterWildlife

Our Coalition

Our organizations represent millions of hunters, anglers, outdoor enthusiasts, scientists, and land stewards who fuel a powerful economic engine and have helped to make the United States the world leader in conservation. Now, we are working together to urge Congress to pass meaningful bipartisan legislation that addresses the impacts of climate change.

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Nature-Based Solutions Use the Power of Habitat to Combat Climate Change

Climate change is already affecting our lands, waters, and wildlife, but healthy habitat can help to slow and reverse these effects. Learn more and see where nature-based solutions have been successful.

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Where Communities Can Find Climate Project Funding

Explore this interactive database of funding opportunities for communities interested in implementing nature-based solutions to climate change.

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We’re excited to work together with these partners to address climate impacts, which could close hunting seasons, deepen existing strongholds of wildlife disease, and drain the conservation funding coffers.

Nick Pinizzotto, president and CEO, National Deer Alliance and QDMA

Without policy that advances climate solutions, we face impacts across the landscape. Click a photo to read about the potential effects.

Keystone species like Eastern brook trout are retreating north and to higher elevations for cooler temperatures and better water quality, because climate change is fundamentally altering the water cycle, shifting precipitation patterns, and resulting in warmer water temperatures, which can create more frequent algal blooms.

Drought and higher temperatures further exacerbate poor conditions for the at-risk sage grouse, a once abundant, widely distributed, and liberally harvested gamebird. Degraded sagebrush habitats are becoming dominated by invasive species like cheatgrass, altering this ecosystem’s productivity and making wildfires burn hotter and longer than normal.

Shorter winters and longer summers are shifting migration and breeding patterns while giving wildlife diseases and pests, like ticks, more of a chance to proliferate. This is already a major problem for the Northeast’s moose populations.

Warmer, more acidic ocean water has had a cascade effect on the marine food web, shifting the availability of forage as well as marine mammal and fish migration patterns. For salmon, which move from freshwater to saltwater and back, this may adversely affect the energy stores they need to survive the trip and successfully spawn.

More than half of our nation’s wetlands have been lost to sea-level rise, erosion, and development, which makes flooding from more frequent, intense storms a significant climate-related risk. Additionally, climate-related stress on key habitats like waterfowl stopover areas can contribute to species decline.

As a solutions-oriented coalition, here are our areas of focus

Agriculture

Farmers and ranchers contribute significantly to carbon sequestration efforts through the management and preservation of grasslands, wetlands, and forests. The role private landowners play in carbon sequestration must be sustained and enhanced by providing incentives for conservation.

Forests, Rangelands, Grasslands

There is no one-size-fits-all forest management strategy. We need targeted approaches that support sustainable management of working forests, emphasize reforestation, steward late successional forests, restore and conserve rangelands and grasslands, enhance markets for forest products, and provide incentives for building with materials that store carbon. Forests, rangelands, and grasslands store large volumes of carbon and they are a critical part of the solution.

Oceans

Healthy oceans depend on solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ocean warming, and acidification. We need more research to help fisheries managers account for changes in migration patterns and habitat as well as investments to ensure that coral and other marine ecosystems can adapt.

Rivers, Lakes, Streams

Policies emphasizing water conservation, nutrient reductions, riparian zone restoration, stream connectivity, floodplain health, and collaborative community-based restoration efforts will be critical to addressing shifting precipitation patterns.

Wetlands

Functioning wetlands provide critical habitat, reduce erosion, improve water quality, sequester carbon, and make coastal communities more resilient to sea-level rise, storm surges, floods, and droughts. We need to reverse the trend of losing inland and coastal wetlands year after year and restore lost wetlands to help meet the nation’s goals for flood control, clean water, and carbon reduction.

Coastal Resiliency

Nature-based coastal infrastructure—including wetlands, barrier islands, mangroves, and oyster reefs—can significantly reduce storm surges and flood damage. The conservation and restoration of habitats can help save lives and coastal communities, while providing healthier fisheries and cleaner water.

Adaptation

Humans, fish, and wildlife are being forced to adapt to our changing climate. That’s why we must invest in policies and projects that allow our communities and fish and wildlife to adapt. This includes improving fish passages, maintaining stream flows, and conserving migration corridors and stopover habitats for big game, waterfowl, fish, and many other species.

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