Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Alaska
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

In the Northwest Boreal and Western Alaska region, climate is changing twice as fast as the global average. This is coupled with an increase in global demand for the region’s natural resources. Yet this region presently has less urbanization and development and therefore, fewer barriers to implementing a strategic landscape design for conservation (Chapin et al. 2004). Landscape conservation design in Alaska is an opportunity for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s, National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) to work collaboratively with partners to develop and implement a landscape approach that ensures our priority resources will have the capacity to cope with and respond to future change.