Climate and Sustainability

Effective beginning 5/20/2025

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Integrating climate considerations into operations and projects

What is the Climate Change Program?

The Region 5 Climate Change Program is a multi-disciplinary program that works to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies across the Pacific Southwest. The Forest Service strategy for addressing climate change includes helping forests adapt to changes in climate by restoring the resilience of forest, range, and aquatic ecosystems; managing forests to protect the ecosystem services they provide; using forest products to reduce and replace fossil fuel energy; maintaining a research program; and reducing the agency's environmental footprint.

Our Work

Many ecosystems are likely to be threatened in this century by an unprecedented combination of climate change, associated disturbances, and other global change drivers. Major disturbances such as floods and droughts are likely to increase in number and intensity. The ecological impacts of wildfires as well as forest pests and diseases are expected to rise, with extended periods of high fire risk and large increases in area burned.

The impacts of changes in climate threaten the capacity of National Forests to provide the kinds of ecosystem services that people have come to expect, including clean air and water, habitat for fish and wildlife, and opportunities for outdoor recreation including hiking, skiing, and fishing. Another ecosystem service that the Forest Service monitors and manages is the sequestration and storage of carbon which is important to consider as atmospheric carbon rises.

The Region 5 Climate Change Program works with partners across California, Hawaiʻi and the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands to support forest stewardship, climate-informed land management planning, and increased climate change literacy.​