NWRS Climate Change Initative

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This agreement between the National Wildlife Refuge System of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NatureServe is entered into to support and facilitate the Refuge System’s Climate Change Adaptation Initiative. The purpose is to provide financial assistance to NatureServe in support of collaborative work between NatureServe and the Refuge System directed at this initiative. Activities will include a range of cooperative ventures, including workshops, vulnerability assessments, data collection, and modeling of climate change impacts to field stations. NWRS staff will be full partners in all activities. This is a single-source award in the amount of $500,000, to be paid out according to individual project specifications and budgets over five years. As the Refuge System plans plan for climate change, we envision many complex and collaborative projects related to the Refuge System’s adaptation strategies. NatureServe is uniquely positioned to be a primary collaborator in these ventures. Some data collection and modeling projects will be data-heavy, each related to a different need and some at very large landscape scales. Realizing them will present difficult obstacles, as many entail data assimilation and management on massive scales. Other work will relate to assessments of the risks that climate change poses to field stations and the resources under their care. These will entail assimilation and analysis of highly complex data from multiple sources, as well as the compilation of detailed reports and planning scenarios. Some projects will require collaborative workshops involving diverse participants from within the Refuge System, as well as various other agencies. Some will result in follow-on work, compilation of technical proceedings, and/or additional projects Examples of projects to be implemented under this agreement are: (1) NWRS Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment; (2) Integrated Land-Use Planning Tool; (3) Refuge Inventories; and (4) Seasonal Technical Assistance. The Refuge System envisions many other projects arising out of its climate adaptation work for which NatureServe is a logical collaborator. These might relate to ongoing modeling of sea-level rise on coastal refuges, application of the Refuge Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Tool (Item a, above) once developed, comprehensive conservation planning tasks, and vulnerability assessments of individual species and/or ecosystems. Justification for Single Source Determination: In accordance with DOI guidance (505 DM 2.14), the USFWS provides notice of its intent to make a single-source award in the amount of $500,000 via a Cooperative Agreement with NatureServe. Competition is not practicable for this porject for two reasons: (1) Some of the funding to be provided under this agreement is to continue and expand upon an existing Refuge Vulnerability Assessment project recently initiated with NatureServe via funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. NatureServe is providing an in-kind match for that project, and competition would have an adverse effect on its continuity; (2) because of the applicant’s Unique Qualifications. NatureServe is uniquely positioned to partner with the Refuge System in this arena. They bring together field expertise, technical and analytical skills, and proven data management capability, as well as immediate and ready access to a range of appropriate partners and datasets. As necessary, they are fully capable of collecting new data, using partners, or assimilating outside datasets and predictive models. NatureServe houses both the technical expertise, as well as the staff and logistical capacity, to coordinate development of these tools with close direction from NWRS planning and biological staff. Also, NatureServe’s LandScope project, a user-friendly geospatial interface for serving land-use data to the public, may prove uniquely valuable as an existing online tool for serving data and results of Refuge System climate projects. It can play a special role as an interface between the Refuge System and its stakeholders with a particular interest in the System’s climate adaptation strategies.

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