By 2075, we will be living on a planet that is much hotter, possibly 3-5° Celsius (5.4-9° Fahrenheit) hotter than the preindustrial average. But how can humanity help nature improve its climate resilience in the years to come? Mongabay’s Jeremy Hance found some answers after interviewing several conservationists.
“In 50 years, it’s entirely possible that climate change will have become the largest threat to many species in the world — and thus to ecosystems in general,” James Deutsch, CEO of the U.S.-based nonprofit Rainforest Trust, told Hance.
Conservation in today’s world, according to Andrew Whitworth, executive director of Costa Rica-based Osa Conservation, needs a three-pronged approach: having more protected areas like national parks, implementing species-focused conservation programs and building climate resilience.
One solution to building climate resilience into nature is to have “large, connected, well-managed ecological systems,” Jean Labuschagne, director of conservation development at the NGO African Parks, told Hance.
Deutsch said large ecosystems are naturally more resilient. “I think focusing on the most intact remaining large ecosystems, and especially large tropical forests, becomes really important. … The very size provides adaptive ability,” he said. Deutsch’s group has been putting additional focus on the Amazon, the Congo and New Guinea, home to three of the world’s largest tropical forests.
Size matters because large ecosystems and landscapes give wildlife more room to move and seek new habitats in case of drought, flood or fire, Hance wrote.
Deutsch said this is why the 30×30 initiative, in which countries aim to protect 30% of Earth’s land and waters by 2030 — only five years away — is an important tool. Today, only 17% of the world’s surface and 8% of its oceans are protected.
Besides size, having varying elevation is also important. “It’s these elevational changes where you get this incredible biodiversity,” Whitworth told Hance, pointing to the Peruvian Amazon’s Manu National Park, which covers a large area and has both highlands and lowlands. He said that as the planet warms further, species in temperate areas will move poleward to the north or the south, depending on which hemisphere they are in, but wildlife in the tropics will move higher upslope.
This is why connecting lowland rainforests to the highland forests is necessary for wildlife to escape, Whitworth added. “Those are the climate lifeboats,” he said, citing a 2019 paper that found that 62% of tropical forests are not connected enough to face the changing climate.
Whitsworth’s group Osa Conservation has shifted its strategy of planting trees in the lowlands to seeking out areas that can serve as climate corridors for the lowlands and highlands of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.
Large, connected landscapes aside, the quality of management is also important, as is the conservation community coming together with a more unifying vision of the future world, Hance wrote.
Read the full story by Jeremy Hance here.
Banner image of Ecuador’s Tapichalaca Reserve by James Muchmore.
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