On April 21st, 2015 President Obama recognized Hawaiʿi as one of seven places from across the nation where successful partnerships are working to improve the climate resilience of landscapes and seascapes in the face of climate change. The Resilient Lands and Waters initiative is a key part of the Administration’s Climate and Natural Resources Priority Agenda, a comprehensive commitment across the Federal Government to support resilience of America’s vital natural resources.
Sites:
Three sites across the state were chosen for the RLW Initiative: He'eia (O'ahu), West Maui and West Hawai'i. These three landscape priority areas have ongoing and active management schemes in place with participation from an extensive list of federal, state, and local government agencies as well as community and non‐profit organizations. All three locations in Hawai'i are designated as priority locations by the State of Hawai‘i or NOAA.
Project Goals:
The Resilient Lands and Waters Initiative project in Hawai'i aimed to demonstrate the benefits of landscape scale approaches to conservation and management that contribute to climate resilience by building upon the existing collaborative inter‐agency partnerships.
The main objectives of the RLW project in Hawai'i were to identify what organizations and partnerships are working in the three sites; how they are approaching the impacts of climate change, what are they doing to increase the resiliency of the landscapes, and what do they need in order to increase their efforts in terms of climate change resiliency.
Through this project, five focus areas across the land and ocean systems in Hawai'i where impacts of climate change are being seen were categorized as: 1) freshwater; 2) terrestrial; 3) coastal/low lying areas; 4) ocean systems; and 5) the agricultural sector.
Seven common issues affected by climate change across all sites were also identified:
- Invasive species
- Habitat shift/loss
- Drought, stream flow, water availability
- Wildfire
- Sea level rise
- Coral health
- Fisheries and agriculture