Evidence over the last decade has shown that ecological change in response to climate change is likely to be unavoidable, widespread and substantial.

As a result, some of our approaches to biodiversity conservation may need to change – including not just the actions we take now but also the overarching goals of what we aim to achieve.

Here we present the second part of the story of bringing biodiversity and climate change into NRM planning. Helping Biodiversity Adapt supports the strategic and implementation phases of planning, including discussion of climate-ready goals for biodiversity conservation and potential options to achieve them.

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What to expect

This Module of the National NRM Impacts and Adaptation project suggests new approaches to biodiversity conservation as well as potential actions to achieve them. It also introduces four new measures to assist with spatial planning of new actions. The Module consists of three components: the Helping Biodiversity Adapt Guide this website, featuring key messages from […]

New principles and approaches

We will need new principles to guide biodiversity conservation given the pressure for biodiversity to change as a response to climate change. The biodiversity projections introduced in Implications of Climate Change for Biodiversity suggest biodiversity will experience a high pressure to change across Australia. Yet contemporary principles typically focus on preventing change by managing threatening […]

Rough frog (Cyclorana verrucosa); Photographer: Peter Lowik

The Biodiversity Adaptation Toolbox

New or revised strategic goals and actions will be needed to align with new principles for managing biodiversity under climate change. To help, we present ‘The Biodiversity Adaptation Toolbox’ (click on the image to view a larger version, and explore the links to the right for further detail). We first suggest a range of potential strategic goals that […]

Quokka (Setonix brachyurus); Photographer: © Stewart Macdonald / Ug Media

Measures for helping biodiversity adapt

We introduce new measures to inform the design of adaptation options. Using the community-level modelling approach introduced in the Implications for Biodiversity module, we applied additional calculations and modes of comparison between baseline and future climates to produce four specific measures that aim to inform the design or exploration of particular adaptation options. To learn about […]

Christopher Lifu shows yam seeds, Captain Billy's Landing, 2014; Source: Lyndal Scobell; Credit Cape York NRM

Planning examples

Practical examples of embracing new principles, deciding on new or revised strategic goals, and planning new actions to achieve them can help adaptation seem tractable and achievable, despite the fact that adaptation planning for biodiversity may look very different when compared with traditional approaches to planning of assets, managing or eliminating threats, or even managing resilience of […]

Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus); Photographer: © Stewart Macdonald / Ug Media

Helping Biodiversity Adapt campus

In this section we provide a summary of the resources used in the Helping Biodiversity Adapt Guide. To find out more about technical information and the references, click on the topics below. For more information about data available on CSIRO’s Data Access Portal, click the menu on the right hand side. For quick reference, the […]