Current Conservation Areas Ill-placed to Deal with Climate Change Challenge

Research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B has shown that current methods of locating conservation reserves are inadequate to deal with future environmental changes. A team from the University of California San-Diego found that the need for conservation areas will shift geographically in the future, with rising temperatures. There will be greater need for reserves in tropical regions high in biodiversity but poor in the resources needed to protect species.

Conventional methods of choosing conservation areas are often based on past threats – an approach inadequate when projecting conservation needs into the future on a 50-100 year timescale. The researchers advocate translocation of conservation reserves – 12% of the world’s land area- according to long-term projections. Such action will require unprecedented cooperation between countries and across traditional boundaries, they say.

Link to original research paper