Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America

344 pages | Figures, tables, color insert. | 6 x 9

Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America offers a road map for securing our energy future while safeguarding our wildlife heritage.

Contributors show how science can help craft solutions to conflicts between wildlife and energy development by delineating core areas, identifying landscapes that support viable populations, and forecasting future development scenarios to aid in conservation design. The book

frames the issue and introduces readers to major types of extraction
quantifies the pace and extent of current and future energy development
provides an ecological foundation for understanding cumulative impacts on wildlife species
synthesizes information on the biological response of wildlife to development
discusses energy infrastructure as a conduit for the spread of invasive species
compares impacts of alternative energy to those of conventional development

The final section calls for a shift away from site-level management that has failed to mitigate cumulative impacts on wildlife populations toward broad-scale planning and implementation of conservation in priority landscapes. The book concludes by identifying ways that decision makers can remove roadblocks to conservation, and provides a blueprint for implementing conservation plans.

Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America is a must-have volume for elected officials, industry representatives, natural resource managers, conservation groups, and the public seeking to promote energy independence while at the same time protecting wildlife.

Review Quotes
Contents

"This book provides a vision for landscape conservation to safeguard our wildlife heritage while securing our energy future. Trade-offs between energy development and conservation are unfolding before our eyes—and the intention of this book is to help policy makers turn science into solutions to this most pressing issue. This book speaks to a philosophy of science-based conservation that first seeks to understand how a system works and then to use that knowledge to help provide solutions."

Susanna Grimes, BC Sustainable Energy Association

"Dave Naugle, and twenty-three experts, have done yeoman's work in addressing interrelationships between energy development and wildlife. The arena they describe is growin rapidly in significance. This important book provides the sorely needed platform upon which to construct research and management programs and guide inevitable debates."

Jack Ward Thomas, Chief Emeritus, USDA Forest Service, Professor Emeritus, University of Montana

"An insatiable appetite for energy could be devastating to our continent's irreplaceable wildlife. Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America is a timely and welcome addition to the scientific literature. Many relevant issues are covered by expert contributors, including the potential negative impacts of so-called green energy--wind, biofuels, and solar power--on wildlife. A must-read for all those concerned with wildlife conservation."

Michael Hutchins, Executive Director and CEO, The Wildlife Society

"Dr. David Naugle is a professor with the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana in Missoula. He's spent much of the last decade researching the impacts development of natural gas is having on sage grouse, particularly in the Powder River drainage in northeastern Wyoming. He was the first to recommend the idea of core areas for sage grouse management an approach that has eased the tension between conservation interests and the energy industry.

His experience with grouse and energy led to this book, a collection of essays by wildlife researchers and conservationists on the effects energy development has on western wildlife and approaches that have been taken to soften those effects.

The articles have a strong technical foundation, but they're well written and understandable for anyone with an interest in the subject. Chapters on sage grouse, hoofed mammals, songbirds, and invasive plants offer a wealth of detail on the interaction between traditional energy development and the western environment; a chapter on wind energy and biofuels details the impacts "green" energy can have on wildlife and wild places.

The last third of the book considers the approaches The Nature Conservancy has taken to minimize damage either at the site of the development or in similar habitats nearby.

An interesting book, offering dependable information on one of the West's most intransigent controversies."

Chris Madson, Wyoming Wildlife Magazine

"Despite its title, this interesting book is not as much about wildlife and energy development as it is about unifying conclusions drawn from an assortment of studies of wildlife population impacts from human encroachment. The collected essays and research summaries are credible evidence of the cumulative negative pressures on wildlife and habitats from the full panoply of human enterprise related to mining, ranching, residential development, and, more recently, energy exploration and development.

I almost wish this book had a different title, so its important message might be more widely received. It is a call for holistic assessment of cumulative impacts across both space and time, and it should not be pigeon-holed as only addressing energy-development impacts. . . . I am hopeful: the book abounds with promising hints of pragmatic mergers between research and results. And that is why this latest amalgamation of population and conservation studies, while academic and dense, bodes well for the overdue convergence of science and society in conserving our remaining open spaces and wildlife communities in the west."

Margaret Rostker, Rangelands

"In Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America, editor David Naugle presents not only a thorough assessment of the impacts and risks of energy development but also—more importantly—a roadmap of how the biological sciences community can address these risks."

Joe Fargione, University of California Press and American Institute of Biological Sciences

"With the conservation problem starkly framed by the book’s quantification of threats to both land and wildlife, the final section turns to conservation solutions. Three chapters broadly address the need to improve the mitigation hierarchy, the need to forecast development scenarios for cumulative-impact analyses, and the need for policy changes to support adaptive management. The book closes with a manifesto for community-based conservation. These solutions are diverse, but all are advocated with an unspoken message: The answer to energy development in the West is not no but rather where.

The hierarchy of 'avoid, minimize, offset' is commonly used to mitigate development impacts. However, determining where to avoid and how much to mitigate is a task fraught with complication. Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation offers an approach called energy by design, which blends landscape conservation planning with the mitigation hierarchy. Landscape conservation planning sets explicit conservation goals for habitat area and population sizes and occurrences, based on what is necessary to maintain viable wildlife populations and natural communities. According to energy by design, when development is incompatible with achieving or maintaining these explicit goals, development should be avoided. This metric helps provide a framework for implementing the “avoid” step of the mitigation hierarchy. An example of this approach is provided in the chapter that forecasts oil and gas development’s likely impact on the sage grouse, which, depending on the development scenario, is likely to result in a 7–19-percent population decline. Protecting key strongholds of the sage grouse population is necessary in order to avert population declines and to prevent a full listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act and will require shifting development away from these core areas.

Conservation success requires the implementation of the scientific tools necessary to protect wildlife in the face of energy development, and the final chapters of this book on policy- and community-based conservation suggest ways to do this. To begin, changes in how the National Environmental Protection Act is implemented could 'provide the much-needed regulatory home for adaptive management' (p. 210). Encouragingly, the book argues that many of these recommended changes could be brought about through rulemaking and without the need for legislative action. The argument for community-based conservation is particularly strong: 'The real key to implementing lasting conservation is in working with people to maintain rural ways of life that are compatible with biological goals' (p. 211). The goal of community inclusion demands a broad skill set, and this book provides a helpful list of 12 key traits of community-based conservation practitioners.

A concluding chapter to tie together the work presented in the book would have been helpful; in particular, an explanation of a game plan for how to gain momentum in the implementation process of these sciencebased approaches to conservation would have been welcome. Otherwise, Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation describes the necessary steps for maintaining healthy wildlife populations in the face of rapid and expansive energy development. The authors herald, 'With one resounding voice, the conservation community needs to indicate which landscapes are most valuable to wildlife if they expect their interests to be heard. To date, we have no such game plan' (p. 229). This book presents the outlines of such a plan. Will society use it to protect our wildlife?"

BioScience

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

PART I. Energy Development and the Human Footprint

Chapter 1. An Introduction TO Energy Development in the West
Chapter 2. Geography of Energy Development in Western North America: Potential Impacts to Terrestrial Ecosystems

PART II. Biological Response of Wildlife and Invasive Plants to Energy Development

Chapter 3. A Unifying Framework for Understanding Impacts of Human Developments for Wildlife
Chapter 4. Sage-grouse and Cumulative Impacts of Energy Development
Chapter 5. Effects of Energy Development on Ungulates in Western North America
Chapter 6. The Effects of Energy Development on Songbirds
Chapter 7. Invasive Plants and Their Response to Energy Development
Chapter 8. Wind Power and Biofuels: A Green Dilemma for Wildlife Conservation

PART III. Conservation by Design: Planning and Implementing Solutions

Chapter 9. Energy by Design: Making Mitigation Work for Conservation and Development
Chapter 10. Forecasting Energy Development Scenarios to Aid in Conservation Design
Chapter 11. Resource Policy, Adaptive Management and Energy Development on Public Lands
Chapter 12. Community-based Landscape Conservation: A Roadmap for the Future

Literature Cited
About the Editor
List of Contributors
Index

Biodiversity & Wildlife

Ecosystem Science & Management

Energy & Climate

You may purchase this title at fine bookstores across the United States. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.