Moving on assisted migration
Experts who once disregarded it as a nutty idea are now working out the nuts and bolts of a conservation taboo: relocating species threatened by climate change. Emma Marris reports.
MARC ROBERTS
The quino checkerspot butterfly, a brown, red and black airborne quilt just a few centimetres across, is an endangered California subspecies being hit hard by climate change. These insects don't like it too hot and dry, and they might have moved slowly en masse towards cooler, wetter climes had the Los Angeles sprawl not been in their way.
But with a little help — a few cocoons toted into the mountains, or north around the city — this species could perhaps re-establish itself. Experts are now giving serious attention to this previously touchy topic: the notion of moving species threatened with extinction by a changing climate into areas where they have never been before.
This August in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a group of scientists, lawyers, land managers, economists and ethicists gathered to discuss the nuts and bolts of breaking a conservation taboo. Whether called 'assisted migration', 'assisted colonization' or 'managed relocation', the idea of manually relocating species is decidedly controversial, and some in the Milwaukee working group feel it would most likely be a disaster.
The main worry is that those moved to new places will do too well and become invasive pests. Relocated species might also bring disease, or they could fail to thrive after a move that leaves behind their current ecosystem companions. And from a purely ideological perspective, interfering with nature in this way is, for many, at odds with conservation's purpose of preserving native assemblages.
But with research beginning to turn up more and more evidence that climate change is already driving species towards extinction when they can't disperse to more suitable areas, assisted migration has evolved in just a few years from a theoretically interesting notion to a realistic possibility.
Continued at:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0809/full/climate.2008.86.html
Similar to geo-engineering which was considered "nutty" but is now receiving ever more attention. :-?
Experts who once disregarded it as a nutty idea are now working out the nuts and bolts of a conservation taboo: relocating species threatened by climate change. Emma Marris reports.
The quino checkerspot butterfly, a brown, red and black airborne quilt just a few centimetres across, is an endangered California subspecies being hit hard by climate change. These insects don't like it too hot and dry, and they might have moved slowly en masse towards cooler, wetter climes had the Los Angeles sprawl not been in their way.
But with a little help — a few cocoons toted into the mountains, or north around the city — this species could perhaps re-establish itself. Experts are now giving serious attention to this previously touchy topic: the notion of moving species threatened with extinction by a changing climate into areas where they have never been before.
This August in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a group of scientists, lawyers, land managers, economists and ethicists gathered to discuss the nuts and bolts of breaking a conservation taboo. Whether called 'assisted migration', 'assisted colonization' or 'managed relocation', the idea of manually relocating species is decidedly controversial, and some in the Milwaukee working group feel it would most likely be a disaster.
The main worry is that those moved to new places will do too well and become invasive pests. Relocated species might also bring disease, or they could fail to thrive after a move that leaves behind their current ecosystem companions. And from a purely ideological perspective, interfering with nature in this way is, for many, at odds with conservation's purpose of preserving native assemblages.
But with research beginning to turn up more and more evidence that climate change is already driving species towards extinction when they can't disperse to more suitable areas, assisted migration has evolved in just a few years from a theoretically interesting notion to a realistic possibility.
Continued at:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0809/full/climate.2008.86.html
Similar to geo-engineering which was considered "nutty" but is now receiving ever more attention. :-?
