Two-Page Summary of the Alaska Subglobal Assessment

Two-page Summary of the Alaska Subglobal Assessment

Title of Assessment: Wildfire, people, and forests: Resilience of boreal Alaska to environmental and socioeconomic changes

Project Team and Institutions

Stuart Chapin (team leader, ecosystem ecologist) University of Alaska Fairbanks

Teresa Hollingsworth (ecologist) US Forest Service

Henry Huntington (anthropologist) private consultant

Orville Huntington (resident of Huslia) Vice-Chair, Alaska Native Science Commission

Jill Johnstone (fire ecologist) University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Amy Lovecraft (political scientist) University of Alaska Fairbanks

Dave McGuire (ecosystem modeler) University of Alaska Fairbanks

David Natcher (anthropologist) University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Lily Ray (geographer) University of Alaska Fairbanks

Scott Rupp (landscape modeler) University of Alaska Fairbanks

Sarah Trainor (political scientist) University of Alaska Fairbanks

Contact Person and Address

Stuart Chapin, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks AK 99775, USA

Tel: 907-474-7922; Fax 907-474-6967; email

Location

Our study region is the Yukon River drainage of interior Alaska (63.5-68˚N; 141-160˚W)

Time Information

Year range for assessment: 1800-present (detailed analysis since 1950)

Year range for scenarios: 2000-2100 (detailed projections through 2050)

Timeline to complete study: Phase 1: 2007; Phase II: 2012 (overall: 2003-present)

Project goals

1. wildfire extent and severity

2. ecosystem patterns, particularly the abundance, location, and accessibility of subsistence resources

3. feedbacks from ecological changes to climate

4. subsistence opportunities for rural communities

5. capacity of rural indigenous communities to envision and shape their future (self-reliance)

Project findings and outcomes

Climate change: Alaska is warming twice as fast as the global average, with little change in precipitation (Chapin et al. 2006). The resulting drying of the boreal forest has increased the annual area burned, primarily through increased frequency of dry years and larger wildfires (Kasischke and Turretsky 2006).

Fire management: Because of limited funding and agency guidelines, Alaskan fire managers focus suppression efforts near human population centers or other areas of management concern. Fire managers are faced with a dilemma because they must decide in early spring (before the fire season begins) the number of airplanes to lease and fire crews to hire.

Wildfire projections: Spatially explicit models of climate and wildfire suggest that, by 2050, a “typical” fire year in Interior Alaska will be similar to the most extreme fire years in the historical record (Rupp et al. 2002; http://www.snap.uaf.edu/). These models were developed through extensive discussion and input from climatologists, ecologists, and fire managers (Duffy et al. 2005).

Science-Policy Interactions: Modeling results are communicated to fire managers and the public through participation by our team members in annual wildfire-strategic-planning workshops, agency meetings with the public, agency planning of prescribed burns, and provision of site-specific 2-km-resolution climate and fire-risk projections for any Alaskan community or region requested by fire managers or the public (http://www.snap.uaf.edu/). For example, team members participate in an interagency Alaska Fire Science Consortium (http://akfireconsortium.uaf.edu), which communicates results of fire science research to fire managers and other members of the firesuppressionand planning community through consortium outreach and partnership activitiessuch as workshops, fact sheets, newsletters, webinars and field trips.

Wildfire impacts on rural communities: Although indigenous peoples have co-evolved with fire in Interior Alaska for 6,000 years, recent social changes have radically altered this relationship. Athabascan people traditionally moved seasonally from summer fish camps to areas that were appropriate for harvesting other subsistence resources in autumn, winter, and spring. If wildfires made one area unsuitable, people adjusted their seasonal round to meet subsistence needs. In the modern era of permanent communities with schools, churches, stores, health services, and airports, wildfire has a radically different effect on communities because people must face the consequences of nearby fires for decades.

Science Communication: Our team members collaborate with village tribal councils to explore ecosystem management strategies such as the sustainable harvest of flammable black spruce stands near communities to provide a local fuel source, new jobs, and secondary successional habitat that favors moose (Chapin et al. 2008, Kofinas et al. 2010). These discussions were initiated by tribal councils that co-organized community workshops in which local residents provided local and traditional knowledge that informs wildfire ecology and management. Community surveys showed overwhelmingly strong support for building firebreaks around communities and using the wood to generate electricity. Additionally, people felt they would use trails to the firebreaks to get firewood and that firebreaks would have a neutral to positive effect on subsistence.

Wildfire protection planning: Team members have also participated in federally mandated Community Wildfire Protection Planning by conducting interviews and surveys of local residents and resource managers. Surveys and interviews demonstrated that local residents trusted managers to plan wildfire protection of communities but felt disenfranchised in regional wildfire planning for surrounding lands because their knowledge and concerns about future subsistence opportunities and places of cultural value were overlooked (Ray 2010). Results of this survey were provided to community residents and to fire managers and to wildlife refuge managers. Results were incorporated into the final Community Wildfire Protection Plan. By working closely with communities in an agency-mandated wildfire planning process, team members identified and helped bridge a communication gap that had long been a source of tension and miscommunication.

Project summary

Our most important conclusion to date is that recent economic and climatic changes in interior Alaska have interacted to reduce the well-being of rural residents and reduce the resilience of the region to projected future changes. Projected changes, however, provide a wide range of options for adaptation, and many rural communities have the adaptive capacity to adjust to these changes and enhance opportunities for sustainability and self-reliance.

The goal of this assessment is to document the changing role of fire, particularly as affected by human activities, on the Boreal System and its human residents and to explore alternative scenarios of future changes that might enhance or further reduce human well-being. Our study design is spatially hierarchical: We study Interior Alaska and the western Yukon as a region, and within this region we study traditional communities and their surrounding traditional use areas. Our study also has a temporal hierarchy of long-term trends (1800-2100), within which we study most intensively the period 1950-2050, where we have greatest confidence in past records and future projections. We focus primarily on two bundles of ecosystem services that are strongly affected by changes in climate and fire regime and on a set of management policies that alter the relationships among fire, ecosystem services, and human well-being.

Fire and climate warming alter climate regulation at large spatial scales by changing vegetation composition, energy exchange with the atmosphere, and carbon balance. We study how these ecological changes either amplify or buffer the rate of climatic warming. These climate feedbacks also influence the consequences of state/territory and national policies of carbon sequestration and fire suppression. Human effects on, and responses to, fire at this scale are currently small. Ecosystem modeling (TEM) and policy analysis are the primary tools used to study these large-scale processes.

Fire, climatic warming, and fire management modify provisioning and cultural services such as subsistence foods (e.g., game, berries, firewood,), economic opportunities and risks (e.g., wages, property risk), and cultural ties to the land (as reflected in altered subsistence activities, rural-urban migration, and forest harvest). We document changes in subsistence foods based on ecological observations and interviews with subsistence users. We then use a landscape model of climate-fire-vegetation interactions (ALFRESCO) to explore how future changes in climate and fire policy might alter fire regime and ecosystem services. The landscape pattern of these changes determines the consequences for use by local communities. We use records of fires, employment, and community income to assess the positive and negative economic effects of fire on communities. We assess conditions and trends through stand-age reconstructions, maps of fires since 1950, and interviews with elders. We explore scenarios through landscape modeling.

Policy and management influence the ways in which climate and fire affect ecosystem services through policy effects on fire pattern and extent and on the wages available to support subsistence. Fire policies respond to both national and local pressures for change. Game-management policies influence both the availability and harvest of ecosystem goods by local communities.

Web page: http://www.lter.uaf.edu/

Published papers

Chapin, F.S., III, T.S. Rupp, A.M. Starfield, L. DeWilde, E.S. Zavaleta, N. Fresco, and A.D. McGuire. 2003. Planning for resilience: Modeling change in human-fire interactions in the Alaskan boreal forest. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1:255-261.

Gruenzweig, J.M., S.D. Sparrow, and F.S. Chapin, III. 2003. Impact of forest conversion to agriculture on carbon and nitrogen mineralization in subarctic Alaska. Biogeochemistry 64:271-296.

Johnstone, J.F. and F.S. Chapin, III. 2003. Non-equilibrium succession dynamics indicate continued northern migration of lodgepole pine. Global Change Biology 9:1401-1409.

Chapin, F.S., III. T.V. Callaghan, Y. Bergeron, M. Fukuda, J.F. Johnstone, G. Juday, and S.A. Zimov. 2004. Global change and the boreal forest: Thresholds, shifting states or gradual change? Ambio 33: 361-365.

Chapin, F.S., III, L. Henry, and L. DeWilde. 2004. Wilderness in a changing Alaska: Managing for resilience. International Journal of Wilderness 10(2): 9-13.

Chapin, F.S., III, G. Peterson, F. Berkes, T.V. Callaghan, P. Angestam, M. Apps, C. Beier, Y. Bergeron, A.-S. Crepin, K. Danell, T. Elmqvist, C. Folke, B. Forbes, N. Fresco, G. Juday, J. Niemela, A. Shvidenko, and G. Whiteman. 2004. Resilience and vulnerability of northern regions to social and environmental change. Ambio 33:344-349.

Forbes, B., N. Fresco, A. Shvedenko, K. Danell, and F.S. Chapin, III. 2004. Geographic variations in anthropogenic drivers that influence the vulnerability and resilience of high-latitude nations. Ambio 33:377-382.

Gruenzweig, J. M., S.D. Sparrow, D. Yakir, and F.S. Chapin, III. 2004. Impact of agricultural land-use change on carbon storage in boreal Alaska. Global Change Biology 10:452-472.

Kruse, J.A., R.G. White, H.E. Epstein, B. Archie, M.D. Berman, S.R. Braund, F.S. Chapin, III, J. Charlie, Sr., C.J. Daniel, J. Eamer, N. Flanders, B. Griffith, S. Haley, L. Huskey, B. Joseph, D.R. Klein, G.P. Kofinas, S. Martin, S. Murphy, W. Nebesky, C. Nicholson, D.E. Russell, J. Tetlichi, A. Tussing, M.D. Walker, and O.R. Young. 2004. Modeling sustainability of arctic communities: An interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers and local knowledge holders. Ecosystems 7:815-828; DOI:10.1007/s10021-004-0008-z.

Ullsten, O., J. G. Speth, and F.S. Chapin, III. 2004. Options for enhancing the resilience of northern countries to rapid social and environmental change: A message to policy makers. Ambio 33:343.

Chapin, F.S., III, M. Berman, T.V. Callaghan, P. Convey, A.-S. Crepin, K. Danell, H. Ducklow, B. Forbes, G. Kofinas, A.D. McGuire, M. Nuttall, R. Virginia, O. Young, and S. Zimov. 2005. Polar Systems. Pages 717-743 In H. Hassan, R. Scholes, and N. Ash (Eds.) Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Current State and Trends. Island Press, Washington.

Hinzman, L.D., N.D. Bettez, W.R. Bolton, F.S. Chapin, III, M. B. Dyurgerov, C. L. Fastie, B. Griffith, R.D. Hollister, A. Hope, H.P. Huntington, A.M. Jensen, G.J. Jia, T. Jorgenson, D.L. Kane, D.R. Klein, G. Kofinas, A.H. Lynch, A. H. Lloyd, A.D. McGuire, F.E. Nelson, M. Nolan, W.C. Oechel, T.E. Osterkamp, C. H. Racine, V.E. Romanovsky, R.S. Stone, D.A. Stow, M. Sturm, C.E. Tweedie, G.L. Vourlitis, M.D. Walker, D. A.Walker, P.J. Webber, J. Welker, K.S. Winker, and K. Yoshikawa. 2005. Evidence and implications of recent climate change in northern Alaska and other arctic regions. Climatic Change 72(3)251-298.

Chapin, F.S., III, M. Hoel, S.R. Carpenter, J. Lubchenco, B. Walker, T.V. Callaghan, C. Folke, S. Levin, K.-G. Mäler, C. Nilsson, S. Barrett, F. Berkes, A.-S. Crépin, K. Danell, T. Rosswall, D. Starrett, T. Xepapadeas, and S.A. Zimov. 2006. Building resilience and adaptation to manage arctic change. Ambio 35(4):198-202.

Chapin, F.S., III, A.L. Lovecraft, E.S. Zavaleta, J. Nelson, M.D. Robards, G.P. Kofinas, S.F. Trainor, G.D. Peterson, H.P. Huntington, and R.L. Naylor. 2006. Policy strategies to address sustainability of Alaskan boreal forests in response to a directionally changing climate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(45):16637-16643. [2008 Sustainability Science Award, Ecological Society of America]

Chapin, F.S., III, M.D. Robards, H.P. Huntington, J.F. Johnstone, S.F. Trainor, G.P Kofinas R.W. Ruess, N. Fresco, D.C. Natcher, and R.L. Naylor. 2006. Directional changes in ecological communities and social-ecological systems: A framework for prediction based on Alaskan examples. American Naturalist 168:S36-S49.

DeWilde, L., and F.S. Chapin, III. 2006. Human impacts on the fire regime of Interior Alaska: Interactions among fuels, ignition sources, and fire suppression. Ecosystems 9:1342-1353.

Huntington, H. P., S.F. Trainor, D.C. Natcher, O.H. Huntington, L. DeWilde, and F.S. Chapin, III. 2006. The significance of context in community-based research: Understanding discussions about wildfire in Huslia, Alaska. Ecology and Society 11 (1): 40. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art40/.

McGuire, A.D., F.S. Chapin, III, J.E. Walsh, and C. Wirth. 2006. Integrated regional changes in arctic climate feedbacks: Implications for the global climate system. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31:61-91.

Randerson, J. T., H. Liu, M. Flanner, S. D. Chambers, Y. Jin, P. G. Hess, G. Pfister, M. C. Mack, K. K. Treseder, L. Welp, F. S. Chapin, III, J. W. Harden, M. L. Goulden, E. Lyons, J. C. Neff, E. A. G. Schuur, and C. Zender. 2006. The impact of boreal forest fire on climate warming. Science 314:1130-1132.

Sparrow, E.B., J.C. Dawe, and F.S. Chapin, III. 2006. Communication of Alaskan boreal science with broader communities. Pages 323-331 in F.S. Chapin, III, M. Oswood, K. Van Cleve, L.A. Viereck, and D.L. Verbyla (Eds.) Alaska’s Changing Boreal Forest. Oxford University Press, New York.

Brinkman, T. J., G. P. Kofinas, F. S. Chapin III, and D. K. Person. 2007. Influence of hunter adaptability on resilience of subsistence hunting systems. Journal of Ecological Anthropology 11:58-63.

Chapin, F.S., III. 2007. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: A framework for wilderness stewardship in a directionally changing world. International journal of Wilderness. Wild Planet Project 13:19-20, 23.