Workshop Report: Preparing for climate change: move who when, where, how and why?
Location: York, Western Australia from 15th to 19th November
Conveners – Stephen Garnett and Nicki Mitchell
In November 2010 20 national and international researchers attended a workshop in York, Western Australia to discuss the factors that need to be considered if managed relocation (MR) is undertaken as an adaptation strategy to conserve biodiversity. Workshop outcomes were presented to the 50th meeting of the Ecological Society of Australia in December 2010. Also known as assisted colonization, assisted migration or translocation, MR involves physically moving species from their current location, which is predicted to become unsuitable as the climate changes, to novel sites where persistence is predicted to be more likely. It is a highly contentious and hotly debated adaptation strategy that an earlier workshop of the NCCARF Terrestrial Biodiversity Network had concluded should be an option of last resort – possibly even behind ex-situ conservation in zoos or germplasm banks.
Nevertheless State and Territory governments have requested advice that could be used in development of appropriate policy and, because of its superficial simplicity, there is a widespread belief that MR might be the first option in some circumstances. There is therefore a need to understand the opportunities and constraints on such an adaptation option.
Discussions covered five broad areas relating to MR: the selection of taxa or processes to move (who), optimization of timing (when), the procedures for choosing appropriate sites to which to move taxa (where), the protocols of moving (how) and the underlying philosophy of moving biodiversity (why).
It is has often been assumed that MR will be applied to species threatened by climate change within their current distribution. The workshop concluded that climate change will affect ecosystem services as well as species persistence at both existing sites and potential recipient sites. The choice of taxa to move could be influenced as much by pull-factors, such as the loss of ecosystem services, as push factors, such as declining climatic suitability for a threatened taxa at a source site. However the group also noted that any decision to move a species or species assemblage should be made with an awareness that opportunities to subsequently move other taxa may be lost. Moreover, a successful MR is likely to be irreversible.
A team from CSIRO and the University of Queensland are well-advanced in modeling the optimal timing of moving a species, and are considering the size and trajectories of change in the source population and the probabilities of establishment at the recipient site. Their modeling also incorporates learning - a nod to adaptive management.
Characteristics of sites that may be suitable for MR were those with sufficient habitat for sustainable populations to become established, those with new or impending niche gaps and sites where MR would be culturally acceptable. The best potential sites were thought to be those planned for ecological restoration, along existing or intended migration corridors and those not currently used for conservation (such as aesthetic and amenity sites, e.g. golf courses, public gardens etc.). Maximising climatic buffering and heterogeneity, bioregional similarity and tenure security, and minimising opportunities for hybridization and the potential for invasiveness should also play in to the decision process of selecting sites.
Protocols for translocation already exist both internationally (IUCN/SSC Reintroduction Specialist Group) and nationally for animals (Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council) and plants (Australian Network for Plant Conservation Require). They require a proponent to prepare an independently refereed ‘Translocation Proposal’ with links to a Recovery Plan that is approved by an animal ethics committee. Modifications to procedures for preparing, reviewing and assessing Translocation Proposals under climate change include improved risk analysis, modified criteria for success, genetic management, the need to consider moving associated species (e.g. orchids with their soil fungi, parasites) and for consultation with stakeholders.
Finally it was acknowledged that adaptation to climate change is not value-free, but is an ongoing social process. There is a need to recognise that there will be both winners and losers, economically and geographically. The MR strategies adopted will depend on the value society accords biodiversity, with the value of a species often being related to where it is found. Before MR should take place, four principles of sustainability ethics should be answered in the affirmative: that the proposed MR preserves what would otherwise become extinct and does not cause great pain and suffering to other species (interspecies ethics), that MR allows future generations to see extant species and to benefit from the ecological functions provided by (intergenerational ethics), that MR helps to maintain current levels of biological diversity and ecosystem integrity but not at the expense of deploying clean, safe, renewable energy sources (intergenerational equity), and that action is justified despite the uncertainty – extant is better than extinct and that the many ‘irreversibles’ that arise from MR can be ignored (precautionary principle).
The workshop concluded that MR is not a panacea to climate change adaptation for biodiversity and is pointless without a substantial commitment to mitigation, ongoing management of existing threats and a belief in the community that biodiversity can and should be conserved. If these preconditions can be met then the group had the following ten recommendations:
- Acknowledge that MR has uses in addition to conservation of threatened species, such as restoration of ecological function
- Develop formal processes immediately so rapid action possible when necessary
- Harmonize policy across different jurisdictions
- Develop quantitative and transparent decision points for process initiation
- Treat MR as experimental, with appropriate monitoring
- Discourage ‘guerrilla’ MR that ignores risks and opportunity costs
- Minimise risks of failure or invasiveness at destination site
- Recognise that, under climate change, deployment of MR will need revision and monitoring
- Recognise that MR is more than just an ecological decision, but should also be framed in sociological, economic and ethical termsMake MR part of the grand vision of minimising biodiversity loss
NCCARF workshop: “Preparing for climate change: move who when, where, how and why?” held in York, Western Australia, in November 2010
Although Managed Relocation (MR) is likely to be a low priority for climate change adaptation in terrestrial environments, biodiversity managers in government have been seeking guidance on appropriate policy settings to respond to anticipated requests to adopt such a strategy. The 20 participants at the workshop concluded that managers should:
- select taxa to move by considering the need to refurbish declining ecosystem services at target sites as well as the need to rescue climate-stressed biodiversity;
- optimize timing of movement by balancing population size and trajectories of change with probabilities of establishment at the new site;
- select sites that are adequate in size, that are likely to be targets for climate migration anyway, that maximise climatic buffering, bioregional similarity and tenure security and minimise opportunities for hybridization and potential for invasiveness
- modify existing protocols for translocation to apply to MR by improving risk analysis, modifying criteria for success, streamlining protocols for moving species across jurisdictional boundaries, and for broader consultation with the community; and
- ensure MR adequately considers interspecies, intergenerational and intragenerational equity and the precautionary principle.
Assuming that mitigation and climate change stabilization underpins all adaptation planning, the workshop urged development of formal policies, harmonised across jurisdictions, as soon as possible. Further, MR should be framed in sociological, economic, ethical and ecological terms, should be accompanied by transparent decision-making processes and always be carried out experimentally, preferably as part of a much broader vision for minimising the loss of biodiversity.
