Chris Swanston gave this invited presentation at the 2017 Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium. The Forest Service recognizes that climate change poses a multi-generational challenge that spans borders, transcends unilateral solutions, and demands shared learning and resources (USDA Forest Service 2011). The Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF, www.forestadaptation.org) grew from this recognition, and was formally launched in 2009 to address the major challenges that land managers face when considering how to integrate climate change into their planning and management. Practitioners whose livelihoods and communities depend on healthy forests face daunting challenges when responding to rapid forest decline or preparing for future change, particularly tribal natural resources professionals and tribal communities (Vogesser et al. 2013). Emphasizing climate services support for these rural communities can help them build adaptive capacity in their cultural and economic systems, often considered fundamental to environmental justice. Supporting climate-informed decision-making by these practitioners and communities requires climate service organizations to show up, listen, and then creatively work with practitioners to meet their own goals on the lands they manage. The emphasis of the CCRF on stewardship goals, as opposed to climate change and its effects, represents a subtle but important shift in focus to people and their values.

1. OPERATIONALIZING
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE FRAMEWORK
Chris Swanston
Stephen Handler
Maria Janowiak
April 24, 2017

2. Provides practical information,
resources, and technical assistance
related to forests and climate
change
Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science
Climate
Carbon
Regional multi-institutional partnership among:

3. Great Lakes ForestsDiverse Forest Ownership
Hewes et al. 2014

4. OPERATIONALIZING
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE FRAMEWORK
Chris Swanston
Stephen Handler
Maria Janowiak
April 24, 2017

5. Our approach is pretty
simple….

6. Listen to people and their needs

7. Consider their
place
and its realities
Central Appalachians Forest Ecosystem
Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis: A
Report from the Central Appalachians Climate change
ResponseFramework Project
Minnesota Forest Ecosystem
Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis: A
Report from the Northwoods Climate change Response
Framework Project
Wisconsin/Western UP Forest Ecosystem
Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis: A
Report from the Northwoods Climate change
ResponseFramework Project

8. Consider their
place
and its realities

9. 1. DEFINE area of
interest, management
objectives, and time
frames.
2. ASSESS climate
change impacts and
vulnerabilities for the
area of interest.
3. EVALUATE
management objectives
given projected impacts
and vulnerabilities.
4. IDENTIFY and
implement adaptation
approaches and tactics .
5. MONITOR and
evaluate
effectiveness of
implemented actions.
Becreative &flexible

10. Adaptation Workbook

Strategies & Approaches

Menu of adaptation actions
• Structured process to
integrate climate
change considerations
into management
Workbook approach
Forest Adaptation Resources
Swanston et al. 2016 (2nd edition);
www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/52760
Also online: AdaptationWorkbook.org

11. The Menu helps you
create clear rationale
for your actions by
connecting them to
broader adaptation
ideas.
Forest Adaptation Resources
Swanston et al. 2016 (2nd edition);
www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/52760
“Intentionality”
“Success”

12. Forest Adaptation Resources
Adaptation Workbook provides “structured flexibility”
Swanston et al. 2016 (2nd edition); www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/52760
1. Where are you
and what do you
care about?
3. What
challenges or
opportunities
does climate
change present?
4. What actions
can help systems
adapt to change?
2. How is that
particular place
vulnerable to
climate change?
5. How can you
know whether
those actions
were effective?
Vulnerability
assessments,
scientific literature,
etc
Adaptation
Strategies
and
Approaches

13. Management
Objectives Challenges Opportunities Feasibility
Other
Considerations
Adaptation Actions
Benefits
Drawbacks/
Barriers
Recommend
Tactic?
Approach
(From Chapter 2) Tactic
Time
Frame
Forest Adaptation Resources
 Step-by-step Adaptation Workbook for planning

14. Management Goals
& Objectives
Climate Change
Impacts
Intent of Adaptation
(Option)
Make Idea Specific
(Strategy, Approach)
Action to Implement
(Tactic)
Challenges &
Opportunities
Why it’s important:
Helps connect the dots
from broad concepts
to specific actions for
implementation.
Forest Adaptation Resources
Menu + Workbook

15. Real-world ExamplesAdaptation Demonstrations
www.forestadaptation.org Click ‘Demonstration Projects’
200+
Projects
underway

16. Keweenaw Bay Indian Community
Sugar Maple Diversity
www.forestadaptation.org/node/392
• Managing sugar maple
to maintain high-quality
maple syrup collecting
• Shifting spring
phenology, maple
decline
• “Common garden” test
with sugar maple
seedlings from across
the species range

17. Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior
Chippewa
Wild Rice Restoration
• Re-establish and expand
wild rice
• Water level changes,
heavy precip during
vulnerable life stages
• Active management of
water quality and
quantity, managing lakes
as well as upland forests

18. Pokagon Band of Potawatomi
Wetland Forest Restoration
• Restore and maintain
culturally important
species (ash)
• Forested wetlands will
become open wetlands
without trees to pump
water
• Promoting a less-
vulnerable replacement
(blue ash), protecting
individual trees from
EAB with injections
www.forestadaptation.org/node/657

19. Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians
Integrated Resource Management Plan
www.forestadaptation.org/node/540
• Prepare an
comprehensive Climate
Adaptation Plan
• Aspen decline, water
table changes, frozen
ground
• Use the Adaptation
Workbook in
conjunction with climate
change planning
curriculum (Climate
Solutions University)

20. Real-world ExamplesAdaptation Demonstrations
forestadaptation.org
Learn through examples!!
 Diversity in lands
 Diversity in objectives
 Acknowledge difference,
build on similarities
 Demonstrate shared
perspectives

21. Build trust
• Show up. Listen. Be transparent. Be humble.
Climate-informed decisions are typically about people
and place, not about climate
• Help people do their jobs and meet their goals
• “Structured flexibility” gets them to their answer
Their place, their knowledge, their decision
Environmental justice in practice
Chris Swanston
cswanston@fs.fed.us