Challenges and Approaches for Integrating Climate Science into Federal Land Management

Abstract

Although private lands are prevalent, federally managed public lands—those managed by the US Forest Service, the National Park Service (NPS), the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)—are uniquely positioned to coordinate climate adaptation across their lands and with other landowners and stewards. The federal government manages almost 30 percent of the land in the United States, nearly 650 million acres, including 401 units of the National Park System and 155 national forests and grasslands (GAO 2013).