Florida Fish & Wildlife Climate Change Summit

In October 2008, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hosted a 3-day summit on climate change. From that summit, a report was produced: “Florida’s Wildlife: On the front line of climate change” which synthesized the results of multiple breakout sessions held at the summit. A pdf version of the summit report can be downloaded at: http://www.myfwc.com/docs/Conservation/ClimateChange_SummitRept.pdf

After the summit, senior leadership at the (FWC) established the Climate Change Steering Committee. This committee is developing an agency strategic plan to integrate climate change across the various divisions and programs at FWC. One of their first actions was to develop four work groups that encompassed all agency activities.

The Florida Climate Team is comprised of a Steering Committee and four work groups: 1) research and monitoring

2) adaptation

3) communication and outreach

4) policy and opportunity.

Jointly, these work groups are helping the entire agency integrate climate change planning and will develop tools for implementation.

These teams are currently developing a list of their roles and functions. The research team is working closely with the adaptation team, to identify key research and monitoring needs to improve land use management with climate change factored in. The communication and outreach work group is working to educate the public on this issue and provide communication between work groups and other stakeholders. The policy and opportunity work group will develop policy recommendations and identify funding resources to help the other work groups accomplish their goals. The FWC is early in the planning stages of addressing climate change, but we are confident that the resources dedicated to this effort will help the agency deal with this emerging and substantial threat.

For more information on Florida’s Climate Change Initiative, contact Doug Parsons at: Doug.Parsons@MyFWC.com