Strategies for Managing the Effects of Climate Change on Wildlife and Ecosystems

The scientific literature contains numerous descriptions and predictions of the
effects of climate change on wildlife populations and ecosystems. Recently, resource
managers and planners have proposed “adaptation strategies” to help wildlife and
ecosystems adjust to the effects of a changing climate. In this report, we review the
scientific literature on climate change adaptation as it relates to biodiversity conservation
and wildlife management. We also review a series of actual climate change
adaptation plans that have been developed in the U.S.A., Canada, England, México,
and South Africa. From these reviews, we identify eighteen general strategies that
could be used to manage the effects of climate change on wildlife and biodiversity.

We recommend that any strategy for managing the effects of climate change on
wildlife and ecosystems be deployed within an adaptive management framework,
in order to enable managers to learn from previous management activities, and to
respond quickly and creatively to the challenges posed by climate change.
For each of the eighteen strategies, we provide a brief summary and discussion of
its advantages and disadvantages (including availability of tools or techniques for
implementation, as well as relative costs). We present a decision tree to help natural
resource managers select the most appropriate set of strategies for use in particular
management situations.