Transactions of the Seventy-fourth North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference

This invited review explores progress that the research and management branches of the Forest Service have made addressing fish and wildlife management in the face of climate change. In this paper, we begin by providing an overview of the agency’s research and management context. Key to this overview is the Forest Service Strategic Framework (U.S. Forest Service 2008a) for responding to climate change, which defines three broad categories of agency goals that guide the incorporation of climate change into natural resource management. Through a series of case studies we demonstrate progress the agency has made in each of those broad goal categories. We conclude by reviewing those features of the Forest Service that position it as an important partner in addressing climate change, and by highlighting some of the management, research, and policy opportunities that must be seized if fish and wildlife are to be successfully managed in the face of climate change.