The Nature Conservancy's Approach and Climate Change

By Laura Hubbard, state director, The Nature Conservancy in Idaho

Clearly, people around the world recognize that climate change poses one of the greatest threats to both civilization and nature. In many places, it is already changing everyday lives, and will have dramatic and lasting impacts on plants, animals, economies and our way of life.

In Idaho, the impacts of climate change will likely mean that new non-native weed species become even more dominant, as will plant diseases and tree pests. Longer and more severe droughts in the summer and severe flooding in the spring could undermine our state’s traditional rural economies and quality of life.

For the past thirty years, The Nature Conservancy has been working in Idaho in specific landscapes to conserve land and water. We have worked together with communities and individuals to create a legacy for future generations, including places like Silver Creek, Hells Canyon, the Owyhees, and, most recently, Ritter Island State Park.

While we focus on land conservation, we also recognize that all our work could be rendered meaningless if we do not address climate change.

Using our non-confrontational approach, The Nature Conservancy is addressing climate change. We are mobilizing governments nationally and internationally to enact legislation that addresses the causes of climate change including emissions from vehicles, power utilities, industry and deforestation. We work to create global incentives to reduce deforestation emissions through policy and partnerships.

The Nature Conservancy recognizes that conservation must occur on local levels, but that we also must find innovative solutions to global issues.

An Idaho resident, for instance, may not know much about the Atlantic forest of Brazil and its importance to our clean air in Idaho. In that forest, local farmers clear the forest to raise buffalo. Due to poor soils, the buffalo destroy the land in a short time, leading to loss of livelihood and loss of the forest. Farmers here face dead-end work that eventually puts them out of business.

But the Conservancy has worked with U.S. corporations to help reforest the Atlantic forest, paying farmers to plant trees and develop sustainable income. The farmers make better incomes, and these U.S. corporations offset their emissions. Local women have been taught craft skills and are earning an income for the first time in generations. The first schools in these villages have been built. A once seemingly hopeless situation now brims with hope.

And that reforested rainforest reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which connects Idaho resident’s clean air to conservation work around the globe. The Brazilian forest may seem very far away from Silver Creek, but what happens there benefits Idaho. This project demonstrates that healthy lands and waters are the foundation for human economies.

Similarly, in Idaho, the open space afforded by working ranches and timberlands can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while parking lots and houses can have negative impacts on climate change. By protecting our working lands, we can have positive impacts right here in Idaho.

Addressing climate change is an opportunity for human well being, not a sacrifice.

By taking action now—locally and globally—we can avert the extreme impacts of climate change. By conserving our special places in Idaho we work to assure our clean air and water while helping address climate change globally. We can create a future that benefits local economies and that keeps people on the land. Working together, we have shown what we can accomplish for conservation in Idaho and many other places around the world. By focusing on what we can do together, we can address this challenge, and demonstrate once again that a healthy environment is essential for both people and nature.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.