Building Resilience to Climate Change

Bringing conservation into the 21st century• Learn your system’s vulnerability • Increase conservation success by redesigning conservation to include climate change

Four tenets:

1) Protect Adequate and Appropriate Space

2) Limit all non-climate stresses

3) Use active adaptive management approaches and start testing strategies

4) Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

1) Protect adequate and appropriate space for a changing world

Malcolm et al. 2001

•GRADIENTS and

CONNECTIVITY

Migration

potential

•REFUGIA

Stability

•HETEROGENEITY

•RESTORATION©WWF

© WWF-Canon / Jürgen FREUND

2) Reduce non-climate stresses on natural systemsUnsustainable Harvest

Pollu

tion

&

Habita

t D

egra

datio

n

Agriculture & Habitat Fragmentation

Invasiv

e

Sp

ecie

s

©WWF-Canon/ Edward PARKER

©WWF/Kjell-Arne LARSSON

3) Employ active adaptive management approaches and start testing strategies

© WWF/ Eric Mielbrecht

© WWF-Canon / Jürgen FREUND

Temp. Change Effects on Biodiversity

2 ºC Some species lostPossible management

options exist

4 ºC Many species lostSome management options

may exist (EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, Low Likelihood of Success)

6 ºC Dire

From Parmesan, 2003

Limitations to Resilience Building

4) Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Resilience will only take us so far. In fact for some systems there may be few resilience building options.