On Tuesday, the Obama administration released the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Adaptation Strategy, a document that provides recommendations for the country to address the threats climate change poses to wildlife and natural resources.

The strategy, which was developed by federal, state and tribal leaders and is meant to be implemented over the next five years, highlights the observed impacts that increased atmospheric CO2 and a changing climate have had on the environment, including ocean acidification, changes in phenology, the spread of invasive species and the shifting of the geographic range of native species. It also lists seven non-binding goals that would help wildlife adapt to climate change. Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the list should serve as an “urgent call to action” for government officials.

Here are the priorities the strategy outlines:

• Conserve habitat to support healthy fish, wildlife, and plant populations and ecosystem functions. Since many endangered and threatened species don’t occur naturally in already protected areas, the strategy aims to identify new areas to protect, keeping the effects climate change will have on species’ ranges in mind. Recommendations include: mapping and conserving high-priority conservation areas that are most likely to withstand the effects of climate change; developing natural corridors, such as tunnels and natural bridges, to allow species to move safely between key habitats; developing market-based incentives to encourage habitat restoration and conservation.
• Update or develop species, habitat, and land and water management plans, programs and practices to consider climate change. Many agencies don’t take climate change into account when managing their natural resources, and the strategy aims to remedy that. Recommendations include: incorporating climate change effects into species and area management plans; protecting native seed sources by collecting and banking seeds.
• Enhance capacity for effective management in a changing climate. Natural resource managers often lack a clear understanding of climate change, and most existing conservation laws and regulations weren’t developed to include possible effects of climate change. Recommendations include: identifying gaps in climate change knowledge among natural resource professionals; prioritizing funding for protection programs that incorporate climate change considerations; working with agricultural and business interests to identify impacts of climate change on crop production.
• Support adaptive management through integrated observation and monitoring and use of decision support tools. The strategy aims to increase the knowledge of the impacts of climate change on natural resources and the effectiveness of mitigation actions. Recommendations include: Collaborating with the National Phenology Network to facilitate monitoring of seasonal plant and animal cycles; conducting risk assessments for priority species and habitats.
• Increase knowledge and information on impacts and responses of fish, wildlife, and plants to a changing climate. Recommendations include: bringing managers and scientists together  to prioritize research needs; conducting research on establishing the value of ecosystem services and how climate change will impact communities; improving modeling of climate change impacts on vulnerable species.
• Increase awareness and motivate action to safeguard fish, wildlife, and plants in a changing climate. The strategy aims to gain public interest and awareness of the effects climate change has on wildlife. Recommendations include: developing educational materials and teacher training for k-12 classrooms on impacts and responses to climate change; developing outreach efforts aimed at local, state, tribal, and federal government authorities, as well as business and cultural leaders.
• Reduce non-climate stressors to help fish, wildlife, plants, and ecosystems adapt to a changing climate. Recommendations include: working with farmers to develop and implementing livestock management practices to reduce habitat degradation; implementing the 2011 National Bycatch Report recommendations to increase information of bycatch levels; determining and implementing sustainable harvest levels in a changing climate.

Climate change is already altering ecosystems throughout the world: warmer summers, for instance, mean crops like strawberries and tomatoes can now be grown on the Arctic Circle. It’s also threatening species’ survival, especially migratory species that depend on the cycles of bud burst and insect arrival to feed themselves and their young. A rare possum in Australia could soon be the continent’s first climate change-induced extinction, and one study found dozens of species of lizards could be extinct within the next 50 years due to climate change. But the adaptation strategy may present a chance to lessen these extinction risks; as the LA Times notes, efforts to protect wildlife and natural resources from climate change’s effects have not yet spurred the political backlash that other proposed actions have.

The government is too strapped for cash to prevent the “imminent” extinction of a critical member of the Rocky Mountain forests, the Obama administration has determined. On Monday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that global warming pollution is causing the spread of the pine bark beetle and white pine blister rust into the the once-cold Rockies, killing off the whitebark pine in staggering numbers. However, because of budgetary limits, the service said it would defer instituting any attempt to save the trees:

The Fish and Wildlife Service determined Monday that whitebark pine, a tree found atop mountains across the American West, faces an “imminent” risk of extinction because of factors including climate change. The decision is significant because it marks the first time the federal government has identified climate change as one of the driving factors for why a broad-ranging tree species could disappear. The Canadian government has already declared whitebark pine to be endangered throughout its entire range; a recent study found that 80 percent of whitebark pine forests in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem are dead or dying. The Natural Resources Defense Council asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to place the tree on the endangered species list. In its determination, the agency said that it found a listing was “warranted but precluded,” meaning the pine deserved federal protection but the government could not afford it.

There are now 265 candidate species waiting for protection — or until their extinction eliminates the urgency.

The whitebark pine has been in decline for decades. Protection requested over 10 years ago, in February 1991, was rejected in 1994. Since then, the collapse of the species, which sustains the entire ecosystem from nutcrackers to grizzlies, has been “dramatic and catastrophic.”

Our ability to be responsible stewards of the planet is likely to get even worse, thanks to the Tea Party. “This month, the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee voted to eliminate any funds for listing species under the Endangered Species Act as part of the 2012 budget,” the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin notes.

The polar bear, elkhorn coral, and staghorn coral are all species listed as threatened because of global warming, but with the caveat that no action be taken to fight greenhouse pollution.

On Friday afternoon, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) quietly released its Final Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl, first listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1990 after widespread logging destroyed its old-growth forest habitat in the Pacific Northwest. The FWS estimates the plan will allow the owl to recover within 30 years, at a total cost of $489.2 million, “if all actions are implemented and effective.”

Unfortunately, that’s as big “if,” because the plan doesn’t have any global-warming response, even though its authors recognize:

Many of the current future climate projections for the Pacific Northwest suggest the spotted owl and its habitat probably will be affected by climate change through several pathways, including but not limited to changes in fire regime; patterns of rain and snowfall; wildlife diseases; and abundance and distribution of native and nonnative species of fish, wildlife, and plants. We have begun compiling and reviewing the best-available information on this subject, and we anticipate modifications to our recovery strategy will likely be needed in the next decade.

In other words, the Final Recovery Plan is not “final” at all. The FWS admits that global warming threatens the spotted owl and its habitat. But because the Bush administration refuses to take action on global warming, it produces completely illogical documents like this one. The authors also assert that no new regulatory mechanisms — like regulation of greenhouse gas emissions — are needed:

The Service believes existing regulatory mechanisms do not preclude, and may support, the Recovery Actions identified in this Plan. The actions identified in this Plan are believed needed to achieve recovery. The current existing regulatory framework will not hinder recovery.

Instead of dealing with global warming, the FWS focuses on the threat to the spotted owl by a competitive species, the barred owl. In 2006 a draft plan under the oversight of Bush appointees “called for luring barred owls to 18 sites across the region with decoys, then shooting them with shotguns.” This strategy has been dropped, but the 34-point final plan includes twelve action items about the barred owl. The only one involving climate change calls for continued assessment.

The Northern Spotted Owl is now the fourth species of animal this administration has recognized is threatened by global warming, joining the elkhorn and staghorn corals listed in 2006 because of “persistent elevated sea surface temperature” and the polar bear listed last week because of Arctic sea ice decline. This is a sadly small list, considering that about one million species are under threat of extinction by 2050.

The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — an organization that has done yeoman’s work exposing the Bush administration’s political manipulation, corruption, and stifling of the thousands of scientists who attempt to serve the public interest with integrity — today highlighted the ethical conundrum facing scientists currently serving under Fish & Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall.

The Fish & Wildlife Service Scientific Code of Professional Responsibility states:

Disseminate scientific information to the scientific community and the public to promote understanding and appreciation for fish and wildlife and their habitats.

Compare that to Director Hall’s internal “guidance” to employees:

[I]t is imperative that all documents, assessments and drafts remain inside the Service, except for discussions as appropriate with recognized federal and state peers.

Hall is now under investigation by the Interior Inspector General for possibly violating the Scientific Code by repeatedly missing Endangered Species Act deadlines to list the polar bear, despite clear scientific guidance.

PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch asks: “How can we expect scientists to obey a code of conduct that their director ignores?”