Climate Refuge
"Protecting the world’s climate is one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime. Forests have a vital role to play in overcoming this challenge. In the United States, the Obama Administration is taking steps to protect and restore our forests in order to sustain our climate and our water resources. Moving forward, forest restoration, climate mitigation and adaption will be central components of how we manage our National Forests.”
-- USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack at the 2009 international climate conference in Copenhagen
The Siskiyou Crest is increasingly recognized by climate scientists as a disproportionately important area to protect as part of a regional and national strategy to mitigate and adapt to the growing climate crisis.
The distinctive east to west ‘Land Bridge’ feature of the Siskiyou Crest, combined with its network of relatively intact roadless areas and forests, gives the area a critical regional role as a dispersal and migration conduit for species and ecosystems moving across the landscape in response to the impacts of climate change. It is also predicted that the unusually varied microclimates of the Crest will provide important habitat for many species as they continue forced migrations north and to higher elevations to find suitable habitat.
“The complex of roadless areas along the Siskiyou Crest needs to be protected as a whole for its function as a crossroads of biodiversity. As the climate crisis unfolds we are going to see climate-forced migrations of wildlife with models projecting that we will see a shift in whole habitats up in elevation and north in latitude. A solid climate change strategy is to look at this landscape as a climate refuge. We are all going to need this landscape as our climate shifts, not just for its wildlife values, but for its ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and drinking water. These areas are key to our own survival and should be set aside as a national carbon trust.”
-- Dominick Dellasala, President and Chief Scientist of National Center for Conservation Science and Policy
The rugged wildlands surrounding the Siskiyou Crest are part of an ancient climate refuge where many species once widespread across the continent were forced to retreat during past climate shift events and now persist as ‘relic species,’ found here and nowhere else on earth. Species in this category include the endemic Siskiyou Mountains Salamander, Port-Orford Cedar and the Weeping or Brewer’s Spruce. It is highly likely that the Crest will provide this same service in the near future.
This natural climate resiliency, resulting from of a combination of a stable, mild regional climate, extremely complex geology and topography and a tremendous diversity of microclimates, is a key reason this area stands out as a conservation priority.
A 2009 study lead by Klamath Center for Conservation Research scientist Carlos Carroll examined “how the regional system of reserves can be made more resilient to climate change” and the Siskiou Crest region stood out as one of the Pacific Northwest’s highest conservation priority areas for enhancing the resiliency of the regional reserve network in light of climate change predictions
(See Figure).
Ecoprovinces with high topographic and climatic heterogeneity (KLA, OLY) retained their importance (proportion of province within priority areas) under climate change, especially in the two scenarios in which dispersal was considered (scenarios 3 and 5, which prioritized proximity between current and near-future and distant future habitat, respectively).
--Carroll et al 2009-Optimizing resiliency of reserve networks to climate change: multispecies conservation planning in the Pacific Northwest, USA
In addition to its role as a refuge and travel corridor for species affected by climate change, this area is an enclave of intact forests that provide crucial carbon sequestration. Recent studies show that the forests and soils of Oregon and northern California’s mature
forests store even more carbon than previously estimated (Oregon State University. 2009, July 3. Pacific Northwest Forests Could Store More Carbon, Help Address Greenhouse Issues).
Other ecosystem services provided by the Siskiyou Crest include the production of cold, clean water at the headwaters of spawning streams. Unlike most rivers, the Klamath gets colder as it flows downstream and is benefited by these mountain streams. The drinking water supplies of many regional communities, including the city of Ashland, OR, emerge from within the boundaries of the proposed monument.
Climate Change Casts a New Light on an Ancient Landscape:
The stark reality facing us today is that global climate change is not only happening, it is proceeding at a rate no one seemed able to imagine just a few years ago. Preserving and improving the viability of the habitat linkages provided by the Siskiyou Crest is one of the most proactive steps we can take in our region to help wildlife and humans adapt to the drastic changes to the landscape climate scientists predict are imminent.
The Rogue Basin of southwest Oregon is one of the only areas of its size to have a site-specific, peer-reviewed report, based on the latest scientific data, to make concrete predictions and recommendations about the looming impacts of climate change to the local ecology and economy. The report, Preparing For Climate Change In The Rogue River Basin Of Southwest Oregon, prepared by the Climate Leadership Initiative at the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of Oregon, and the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy in Ashland, makes many tangible recommendations for how land managers can best prepare for the startling changes to come.
To prepare our rivers and forests for climate change by increasing resilience and resistance, the science panel on this project recommends:
| Remaining intact habitats should be protected, including old growth, roadless areas and corridor connections for wildlife migration. Protected areas should be expanded longitudinally and latitudinally in order to allow species to shift their ranges. Protection and restoration of ecosystem structure, function and genetic diversity to allow organisms to withstand and adapt to climate stressors. Land and stream reaches that provide critical support for ecosystem services should be identified, protected and restored. Ecosystem services are benefits that people gain from functioning ecosystems, including clean water, decomposition of waste and toxins, timber harvest, recreational opportunities, etc. |
Protecting these carbon-sequestering forests in the face of climate change is of even greater significance in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, as climate models increasingly predict that it will see a smaller average temperature increase (2-3 degrees within the next 50 years) than anywhere else in North America. As the impacts of climate change become more severe, the Siskiyou Crest could very well, once again, serve as an Ark for species struggling to adapt to a changed world.
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