The Nature Conservancy - Tackling A Global Environmental Threat In Local Lands and Waters

Go Deeper

Global Climate Change Initiative
Learn what the Conservancy is doing to reduce the impacts of climate change on our lives, on our environment and on future generations.

Delaware Bayshores
This 3,420 square-mile area harbors some of the largest concentrations of interesting habitats, and rare plants and animals, on the east coast

“Every acre of land and every mile of coast protected by The Nature Conservancy will be affected by climate change.” Stephanie Meeks, Acting President and CEO, The Nature Conservancy

It’s official, climate change threatens 55 years of work and investment by The Nature Conservancy. The evidence can be found here in Delaware, where survival of some of the region’s most remarkable species depends on ocean currents, changing seasons and other natural processes spanning the globe.

Take the Red Knot. This plump, reddish shorebird follows nature’s cues each spring, arriving in the Delaware Bayshores to feast on horseshoe crab eggs during a 4,000-mile journey that reaches from South America to the Canadian Arctic. The population of Red Knots stopping in the Delaware Bayshores has dropped from 95,000 birds in 1989 to only 12,375 in 2007. Biologists aren’t sure why, but climate change could be a factor.

“Changes in the timing of seasons resulting from climate change could significantly influence landscapes like the Delaware Bayshores, where species like the Red Knot spend a critical portion of their life cycles,” says Jay Laubengeyer, director of conservation programs for the Conservancy’s New Jersey chapter.

Scientists believe climate change will affect Delaware in a number of ways. Since 1895, the region has become slightly warmer and wetter. Rising sea levels are projected to destroy more than half of the remaining intertidal habitat in the Delaware Bay, the second largest spring migration destination for shorebirds in the western hemisphere. Changes in the ocean will also affect habitat further inland, including freshwater fisheries, and the density and diversity of native forests. Farmers could face more drought-like conditions, and hurricanes likely would be more severe if ocean temperatures increase. Rising sea levels could even leave parts of Delaware underwater.

In response, the Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Initiative is working at an international scale to create incentives and partnerships that will reduce deforestation emissions around the world. In the U.S., strategies focus on raising awareness and supporting the passage of federal climate change legislation. Closer to home, the Delaware chapter is working with other chapters throughout the northeast corridor to analyze the impacts of climate change, and seek innovative strategies that will enable natural areas to cope and adapt.

“We continue to plant trees and restore native habitat in places like the Milford Neck and Pemberton Forest preserves,” says Roger Jones, vice president and state director of the Nature Conservancy’s Delaware chapter. “Not only do these activities contribute to carbon storage, but they also make Delaware’s lands and waters more resilient to dramatic events like climate change.”

However, restoring habitat represents only one piece of the puzzle.

The Delaware chapter is approaching climate change from other angles as well – primarily, advocacy. The chapter is actively promoting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an agreement among ten northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states – including Delaware – aimed at implementing a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 2009. RGGI is the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade program, and is viewed as a potential model and precedent for a federal program to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Delaware chapter is also seeking support for more research into ocean currents and temperatures, and the complex relationship between climate changes and the life cycle of native species like the Red Knot.

Jones adds, “We’re a small state with significant global resources that could be permanently altered by climate change. It’s daunting, but we’re up for the challenge.”