Resiliency to climate change: size matters
March 20th, 2008 by Jim JustEcologist Tom DeLuca says there’s no way to avoid climate change. But our forests and wildlands have evolved under changing climates, and have some resilience.
To effectively allow for natural adaptation to climate change, size matters. A substantial core habitat must be present for the migration of species across landscapes and to buffer zones with human development. But our approach to environmental protection has so far been seriously flawed. In protecting wilderness and other resources, we’ve created “islands.” That makes wilderness areas and other protected resources and habitats susceptible to climate change.
DeLuca argues that large-scale land conservation is required, and efforts must extend beyond traditional government management to involve society as a whole. We need a restoration of the land ethic.
But we’ve got far to go. As DeLuca puts it:
“The efforts being conducted by our government are laughable.”