The Southeast is currently undergoing high rates of population growth, urbanization, and land use change while also facing challenges brought by climate change, including sea level rise and more frequent extreme weather events. These changes are threatening and will continue to threaten wildlife and their habitats in the region, as well as infrastructure and important resources like freshwater. Recognizing these problems, state fish and wildlife agencies, together with federal and non-governmental partners, have initiated and recently released version 1.0 of the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS).

The SECAS aims to establish a connected network of landscapes and seascapes that supports thriving fish and wildlife populations and improved quality of life for people across the southeastern United States and the Caribbean.

The announcement of SECAS 1.0 came on Monday October 17, 2016 at the Southeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) annual conference in Baton Rouge, LA where the SECAS Conservation Leadership Summit was held. The first half of the Summit was spent with state agency leadership from nearly all of the 15 SEAFWA member states.  They heard presentations from Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) staff and from a Southeast Climate Science Center sponsored researcher about SECAS and case studies from their own staff on how SECAS can be used.  On the second day of the meeting, the state agencies unanimously approved continuing to move SECAS forward.

The Department of the Interior Southeast Climate Science Center is actively supporting the development of the SECAS by evaluating existing conservation plans and expected land and climate change impacts, and in collaboration with the Southeast conservation community, identifying opportunities to incorporate landscape and climate change considerations into state and regional conservation actions.

Learn more about SECAS here: http://secassoutheast.org/