The Approach. Forests, woodlands and grasslands have an important role in mitigating and adapting to climate change. "Mitigation" addresses ways that ecosystems can sequester carbon, ways that carbon loss can be minimized, ways to increase carbon stored in wood products, ways to reduce fossil fuel use in manufacturing, and ways that forests and woodlands can provide renewable energy from woody biomass to replace fossil fuel consumption. Mitigation also includes ways the Agency can reduce its environmental footprint (e.g., carbon, energy, pollution, etc.), and lead by example in greening our practices. "Adaptation" focuses on identifying the vulnerabilities of ecosystems (e.g., vegetation, wildlife, water) to different climate scenarios in diverse geographic regions; what management actions will sustain ecosystem services under a changing climate; and, how land managers can address different sources of uncertainty (environmental conditions, models, data, resources, planning horizons) as they plan for a future increasingly influenced by changes in climate. This planning includes minimizing carbon losses, and it melds adaptation and mitigation inextricably: there can be no increase in carbon sequestered without maintaining ecosystem health.

This document balances research across a range of management, science and technology transfer actions—aimed at developing adaptation and mitigation approaches to ensure that forests, woodlands and grasslands have the capacity to maintain health, productivity and diversity while meeting carbon sequestration needs. The strategy closely corresponds with the research focus and goals of the US Climate Change Science Program.

The strategy contains four integrated elements aimed at enhancing the management of forests, woodlands, and grasslands under changing climate:

1. The first element includes current and future FS research to enhance ecosystem health and sustainability, increase retention of newly sequestered carbon, and avoid carbon losses from major disturbances.
2. The second element focuses on research that will assist managers in enhancing carbon sequestration via management that could increase forest growth rates and area of forested lands; enhanced biomass extraction and utilization research and understanding long term carbon product storage pools.
3. The third element integrates the first two research elements by developing decision support tools and approaches for policymakers and land managers.
4. A fourth element is focused on the shared research needs for infrastructure, scientific collaboration, and technology transfer needed over the next decade to facilitate and implement in natural resource planning, the research and applications in the first three elements.

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