Landscape-scale climate change adaptation planning for national wildliferefuges in the crown of the continentproject dates: 1 1 2025 through 12 31 2026AWARD purpose: the U.S. Fish and wildlife service…

This Cooperative Agreement award of $399,846 from the U.S. Geological Survey's National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CFDA 15.820) program supports a two-year project to develop landscape-scale climate change adaptation planning for the National Wildlife Refuge System in the Crown of the Continent region. The project aims to inform the creation of a Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the Western Montana NWR Complex by synthesizing climate futures, assessing vulnerabilities, and evaluating adaptation strategies. Key activities include conducting a stakeholder needs assessment, developing climate scenarios, and facilitating workshops to evaluate management implications and explore opportunities for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to contribute to landscape-scale climate adaptation. The University of Colorado is the prime recipient, and they have subawarded a portion of the work to the University of Montana to execute the research objectives, including partner and stakeholder engagement, outreach, and knowledge integration. The project deliverables include a report tailored to the National Wildlife Refuge System's planning needs and a report or webinars to communicate lessons learned for future planning efforts.

Activities

The recipient will conduct a situation assessment to understand stakeholder perceptions and values, develop a set of scenarios describing alternate future conditions for priority ecosystems, and bring this information together through a series of workshops to evaluate management implications and explore opportunities for the FWS to contribute to landscape-scale climate adaptation. Throughout this project, the recipient will work closely with NWR staff, tribes, and key partners to strengthen relationships and guideprocesses and outputs to ensure they provide actionable value.deliverables and expected outcomes: expected products include a report tailored to meet planning needs for the nwrs and accessible for public sharing, as well as a report or webinars to communicate lessons learned from this pilot effort that can inform future planning efforts across the NWR system.intended beneficiary(IES): the climate science and partnership work advanced through this proposal will provide a strong foundation for management planning that helps the FWS be prepared to collaboratively meet future conservation challenges and opportunities. Intendedbeneficiaries also include confederated salish and kootenai tribes and other members ofthe crown managers partnership.

Subrecipient activities

The university of colorado will subaward to the university of montana to execute the research objectives of this project. The university of montana will be engaged in understanding partner and stakeholder perspectives and needs related to climate change, to develop a shared understanding and vision for future conservation priorities and inform the western montana refuge complexs role and relationships in the crown landscape.