About 90 kilometers (56 miles) southeast of Cape Town lies the tranquilly-named town of Betty’s Bay in South Africa, home to less than 2,000 people. But it’s not the people that draw Nik Sekhran’s eye. “I enjoy watching the African oystercatchers,” says Sekhran, chief conservation officer at World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Big black birds with […]

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20763989

What will the world look like in 2075 when temperatures could be 3-5° Celsius (4.5 to 9° Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial average? And what should conservationists be doing now to better prepare nature for the changes to come? Mongabay interviewed eight conservationists to better understand how we can aid the natural world to build greater climate resilience.

Whitworth further describes conservation today as a three-legged stool. One leg is protected areas like national parks, the second is species-focused programs, but the third — and the least focused-on — is building climate resilience.

So, how do we do it? How do we build climate resilience into natural systems that are already under attack by deforestation, habitat destruction, over-exploitation and invasive species among other impacts?

Jean Labuschagne, director of conservation development at the NGO African Parks, spells it out with three components: “Large, connected, well-managed ecological systems.”

“Large intact ecosystems are naturally more resilient,” agrees James Deutsch, CEO of Rainforest Trust. “I think focusing on the most intact remaining large ecosystems, and especially large tropical forests, becomes really important … the very size provides adaptive ability.”

“Large intact ecosystems are naturally more resilient,” agrees James Deutsch, CEO of Rainforest Trust. “I think focusing on the most intact remaining large ecosystems, and especially large tropical forests, becomes really important … the very size provides adaptive ability.”

As an example of an optimal protected area for a hotter world, Andrew Whitworth points to Manu National Park in the Peruvian Amazon. Manu covers a vast area of 17,162 square kilometers (6,626 square miles), an area larger than the U.S. state of Connecticut. But just as important to Whitworth: Manu has an advantage many parks lack — it has both highlands and lowlands. Manu protects land all the way from just 150 meters (492 feet) above sea level to 4,200 m (13,779 ft.).

“It’s these elevational changes where you get this incredible biodiversity,” says Whitworth, who discovered a frog species new to science in Manu’s foothills.

A park with this much altitudinal difference will allow species to migrate upslope as Amazonian lowlands heat up and dry out, Whitworth explains. As climate change pummels our planet, species in temperate areas will move poleward — that is, northward in the northern hemisphere and southward in the southern. But in the tropics, they will move upslope — as far as possible.

While protecting lands that allow for temperate species to move will be vital, Whitworth says the most “bang for your buck” will be in preserving “tropical elevation gradients.” In lay terms, Whitworth is saying we need to connect lowland rainforests to highland rainforests and cloud forests, as high as possible, to provide refuges for tropical species to escape to, just like Manu does.

Currently, most corridors are built with specific species in mind — usually, large mammals, particularly predators. But Deutsch wonders whether it might be better to focus on building corridors for plants. Meanwhile, Christopher Jordan, Latin America director at Re:wild, says he’d like to see more corridors designed for seed-dispersers, such as herbivores or birds.

“Nature is the best technology we have. It’s running for millions of years,” says Schepers, adding that “restoring nature at scale … will also help us to mitigate a lot of the [climate] impacts.”

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