It’s easy to assume we can address climate change by protecting the places where plants and animals live today. But the truth is, temperature changes will shift habitat, while spurring droughts, floods and other extreme weather.
In face of this uncertainty, smart conservation is an effective way to save wildlife and help communities prepare. Using climate-resilience science, land trusts can identify and protect large tracts of land harboring “micro-climates”—natural strongholds which are better equipped to recover from disturbance—that we can protect today to support plant, animal and human communities tomorrow.
Today, OSI has moved to the forefront of the climate-resilience conservation movement.