In July, the other INRMP climate fellows and I had the opportunity to attend the first DoD/FWS Climate and Conservation Summit at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) (photo attached). We attended as notetakers, allowing us to listen to and help summarize conversations between leadership of both agencies on how to more effectively work together on climate change. Over the course of the week, employees of the DoD and FWS brainstormed pilot, or “game-changing,” ideas to better collaborate and address the biodiversity and climate crises.

Most uplifting to me was the sense of urgency and commitment to climate work, which I believe is more critical now than ever. Leadership committed significant funding to next steps and issued a call for pilot concept paper submissions within the month following the summit. These pilot ideas are meant to advance the agencies’ partnership on conservation while proposing new solutions to increase resilience of military installations. After papers are submitted and projects are selected, a second meeting will be held at the NCTC for leadership to finalize project implementation.

With the DoD managing over 27 million acres across the country, climate-informed management strategies will make a major difference for endangered species’ protection, climate adaptation and mitigation, and emissions reduction. Emerging ideas from the summit that interested me included an inter-agency resource library, joint trainings on climate topics such as the Resist-Accept-Direct framework, use of private investments in conservation, and expanding conservation opportunities on Sentinel landscapes (areas of high priority lands for DoD, USDA, and DOI). Being a part of this summit (as one of the youngest attendees!) and seeing rapid action have been inspiring, and I hope that our climate profiles also benefit the shared goal of progressing climate resilience on military installations.