According to a report released September 6 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the United States Congress, America's publicly-managed lands and waters, including popular and beloved national parks, are suffering from the effects of climate change and will face further problems in the years to come. Yet the government agencies that oversee these areas - which cover nearly one-third of the U.S. - have not given their staff the guidance or support they need to manage and minimize these adverse effects, according to the report.

The GAO studied four representative areas, including Glacier National Park in Montana and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and documented a number of trends harmful to plant and animal life in those areas, including endangered and threatened species. Glacier National Park officials discussed the push of forests into previously treeless alpine regions, decreasing the habitat for animals such as bighorn sheep and grizzly bears. Florida Keys staff spoke of the stress response of coral reefs to warmer water temperatures, the "coral bleaching" which turns healthy bright-colored coral into pale, algae-less coral, affecting in turn crustaceans, fish, and other parts of the ecosystem. On land in the Keys, rising sea levels and intensified hurricane activity have caused salt-water to intrude on the fresh water that species like the Key deer and the Lower Key marsh rabbit depend on. These problems and others are expected to continue and intensify.

Beyond these serious environmental concerns, the report also notes the threat to "economic and social goods and services" such as recreation and tourism, fishing, and ranching. For example, as Glacier National Park's glaciers dwindle, so may its visitors, while coral bleaching in the Florida Keys will not only decrease the interest of scuba divers and snorkelers but affect nearby fish stocks as well.

Yet despite these major concerns, GAO found that federal management agencies were doing little to address and minimize the effects of climate change. Staff do not feel that climate change is a priority of their agencies and lack guidance and site-specific information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change. According to the report:

Resource managers in all of the workshop groups agreed that they have a wide range of responsibilities and that, because none of the agencies have designated climate change as a priority, the managers focus first on nearterm activities that they are specifically required to undertake, leaving less time and resources for longer-term issues such as climate change...

Resource managers at our workshop also said that climate change is not a priority, in part, because of limited support from agency leaders. Specifically, resource managers discussing the coasts and oceans ecosystem said that there has been little support from agency leaders to comprehensively address climate change issues. In addition, resource managers discussing the fresh waters ecosystem at our workshop told us that there are political hazards associated with discussing climate change, and that it is not politically profitable to talk about the issue. Resource managers interviewed for our case studies made similar points. For example, NOAA resource managers at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary said that they have difficulty using terms like "global warming" in presentations and in publications due to concerns raised within NOAA. Similarly, an official at Glacier National Park said that top NPS management monitored public statements on climate change more closely than any other issue, and that park managers are reluctant to talk about climate change. - Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources (5mb PDF)

While the federal agencies are protesting this characterization ("Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell said that studying one forest, the Chugach, is not enough to draw conclusions about more than 300,000 square miles of national forests. Though Chugach's management plan does not deal with climate change, she said, 12 of the 155 national forests do"), others are calling for a legislative approach, including Senator John Kerry, who along with Senator John McCain requested the report in 2004.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, who was director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton and now is executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, called the report an urgently needed early warning for the nation.

"Global warming is and will continue to contribute to species extinctions, flooding of coastal refuges and massive movements of wildlife populations in search of more hospitable habitat," she said. "Polar bears and other imperiled species, wildlife refuges, parks and myriad natural resources are at risk, and Congress clearly needs to provide more legislative direction because the agencies have failed to do so." - International Herald Tribune