As the impacts of anthropogenic climate change increase, conservation of climate-change refugia has become a key strategy for effective environmental stewardship. Over the last 5 years, the field of climate-change refugia conservation has made exciting advances, shifting from concepts and theory to refugia mapping and implementation. However, few studies have advanced to action on the ground; while 84% of studies identified and mapped refugia, only 4% involved implementing management action. Moreover, taxonomic and geographic gaps remain, with most studies focused on terrestrial plants and vertebrates in Europe and North America. Here, we outline impediments to implementation following the steps of the Climate-Change Refugia Conservation Cycle. Based on a systematic literature review, we elucidate advances and obstacles with examples from a diversity of systems and sectors from across the world and highlight emerging work bridging the gap between research and implementation.
Figure 1: Framework for successful biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change.
Conservationists have called for conserving 30%–50% of the earth’s surface to address the ongoing biodiversity and climate crises. To be successful, such an expansion of the global reserve network must meet climate-intensified challenges of species movements, ecological transformations, increasing human needs, and environmental injustices. These challenges will not be overcome by simply doubling or tripling the footprint of protected areas. Instead, successful biodiversity conservation will require planning for conservation mosaics—large, integrated landscapes, and seascapes composed of areas with different levels of protection and types of management—that cover the entire earth. Such mosaics can (1) increase landscape-scale coordination of conservation efforts, (2) increase landscape permeability, (3) sustain healthy human populations, and (4) reduce environmental injustices. We describe this more holistic spatial conservation paradigm and provide a framework for planning for conservation mosaics that addresses growing biodiversity conservation and human needs.