Australia's ecology in for a shock

ScienceAlert 19 Aug 09;
Australian National University

The authors of a report released today by Peter Garrett MP have warned of the dangers posed by climate change on Australia’s biodiversity and eco-systems.

The report – Australia’s Biodiversity and Climate Change: Summary for Policy Makers – was launched this morning by Mr Garrett, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts.

It was written for the Federal Government by a team of eight experts led by Professor Will Steffen, Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute and including Professor David Lindenmayer and Professor Pat Werner of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at ANU.

Professor Steffen said the report takes a comprehensive view of the future of Australia’s biodiversity under a rapidly changing climate and came to some important conclusions.

“First, with unabated climate change, the rate of extinctions will rise sharply,” he said. “We will indeed be facing an even more serious biodiversity crisis than we are today. With a worst-case scenario, our ecosystems would face a shift in climate equivalent to the transition from the last ice age to the present warm period. That transition took thousands of years; this one would occur in just 100 years.

“Second, in terms of biodiversity, climate change is operating on anything but a clean slate. We have already seen massive changes to our biotic fabric in the last 200 years. Most of the existing stressors – land fragmentation, invasive species, altered disturbance regimes – continue to operate. Indeed, many will be exacerbated by climate change. Thus it is essential that we continue to deal with these existing stressors.

“Third, biodiversity intrinsically has low adaptive capacity to rapid change. The most appropriate approach to minimising biodiversity loss is to make space for ecosystems to self adapt. This means a continuing focus on national parks and other protected areas as reservoirs of well-functioning ecosystems, but it also means an increasing emphasis on off-reserve conservation.

“Finally, Australians may well need to change our fundamental views of the natural world around us. Species may no longer exist in places we expect them to; some of our most valued ecosystems and biomes will change; and novel ecosystems will develop. Surprises will abound. But above all, we’ll need to invest much more in our natural environment if we are to maintain our essential ecosystem services, which ultimately depend on diverse and well-functioning ecosystems,” he said.

Original news release.