Dr. Terry Chapin
Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska
Wednesday, April 9, 6:00 p.m., NR 105
Social-ecological sustainability in a changing world: Concepts and policy strategies to address climate change in Alaska
Human activities are altering many factors that determine the fundamental properties of ecological and social systems. Is sustainability a feasible goal in a world in which these controls are changing with a directional trend over time? This is global problem, but Alaska is particularly appropriate place to address this question because of rapid climate warming. This has profoundly affected factors that influence landscape processes (climate regulation and disturbance spread) and natural hazards; the goods that people harvest from ecosystems such as food, water, and wood; and many of the cultural benefits that people derive from ecosystems. Four broad policy strategies emerge for sustaining social-ecological systems at times of rapid change: (a) reducing vulnerability by sustaining basic ecological processes and reducing those hazards and stress that cause changes; (b) increasing adaptability by maintaining a diversity of options and experimenting with potentially innovative solutions; (c) fostering resilience by learning to cope with surprises and strengthening feedbacks that stabilize the current state of the system; and (d) facilitating transformation to new, potentially more beneficial states by taking advantage of opportunities created by crisis. Each strategy provides societal benefits, and all of them can be pursued simultaneously.
Thursday, April 10, 3:00 p.m., NR 105
Changing human-fire interactions in Alaska’s boreal forest: Analyzing the local effects of global change
Despite its remote location, Alaska’s boreal forest is substantially shaped by recent changes in human-fire interactions. Recent increases in the extent of wildfire result from high-latitude amplification of global warming trends that are driven in large part by fossil-fuel emissions of a globally distributed human population. This exemplifies the spatial tradeoffs between localized societal benefits of fossil-fuel-dependent development that is globally dispersed and the detrimental consequences of climate warming that are concentrated in climatically vulnerable regions. Boreal fire acts as both a positive feedback to warming through CO2 emissions by combustion and a negative feedback due to altered energy exchange. The net negative effect of this climate feedback to warming depends on total area burned and is concentrated in the regions where fires occur. At the local scale, human causes and consequences of fire regime depend on pattern rather than total area burned. Prior to European contact, Athabascan Indians managed fire in eastern Alaska (but not in the west) to improve habitat for animals that they hunted; move through dense forests; and reduce risks of large catastrophic fires by breaking up the homogeneity of flammable black spruce forests. Today, people account for only about 10% of the area burned, but they continue to have a profound effect on fire pattern. People light two-thirds of the fires in Interior Alaska, an effect that is detectable across most of Interior Alaska. However, most of these fires are put out at a small size, so the greater human impact is through fire suppression near communities and along roads. This fire suppression has many short-term benefits, including the protection of life and property and the generation of fire-fighting wages that are an important financial support for subsistence hunting and maintenance of cultural traditions in rural communities. However, the net effect is to increase the long-term risk of large catastrophic fires by increasing the continuity of flammable fuels near communities and private property—at a time when climatic change is increasing the risk that these forests will burn. Despite the apparent collision course of changes in both climatic and vegetation determinants of fire risk near communities, there are options to turn these risks into benefits through development of biofuels as heat and power sources for rural communities. The challenge is to engage people locally in addressing problems in ways that provide the best balance of local and global benefits. Although the specifics of this story are unique to Interior Alaska, the bottom line of the critical need for local action to address global problems is universally applicable.
Graduate Student Hosts: Craig Faulhaber (caf@gis.usu.edu) and Scott Hoffmann (scott.hoffmann@aggiemail.usu.edu)
*The April 10th seminar will be preceded by refreshments in the NR atrium at 2:30 p.m.
**To schedule an appointment with Dr. Chapin, please contact Stephanie White—x2555 swhite@cc.usu.edu