Friday, August 10, 2007 - 9:00 AMCOS 158-4: Changing climate, changing strategies: Rethinking conservation and management
Sonia A. Hall, Molly W. Ingraham, Peter W. Dunwiddie, Kara Shaber-Nelson, and Roger Fuller. The Nature Conservancy
Traditionally, conservation efforts have focused on sustaining viable species populations and communities on protected sites over the long term. This has been accomplished by establishing networks of protected lands, and by maintaining or enhancing native species that are appropriate to site biophysical conditions. However, climate change poses new and unique challenges. Therefore, different approaches must be embraced by conservationists. Alternatives may include 1) designing reserves that span greater environmental, latitudinal and altitudinal gradients, and which span ecotones and range boundaries of many species, 2) accepting that species will not remain indefinitely in one location, 3) defining desired future conditions as a trajectory through time and across landscapes, and 4) facilitating the introduction of key species into new locations that may be outside historic ranges, based on an understanding of species’ environmental tolerances and dispersal limitations. The Nature Conservancy of Washington has taken the critical first step of integrating climate change effects into program goals by including representative and functional habitats that cross environmental gradients, enhancing connectivity for ecosystem processes and species, and allowing sufficient space and corridors to compensate for sea level rise. This is only part of the solution. What does biodiversity conservation success look like, and how do we measure progress towards it? These questions necessitate creative thinking about end-points, natural communities and the spatial and temporal scale at which success is measured. We discuss how we are actively adapting our goals, strategies and measures of success in order to address potential impacts of climate change.