Holding Ground: A New Approach to Land Conservation in a Changing Climate

By Susannah Wood

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the news on climate change: polar ice caps melting at alarming rates, sea level rising, the oceans both acidifying and warming, levels of C02 closing in on 400 ppm, 2014 was the hottest year ever globally (except for the Northeast United Sates). Scientists warn of mass extinctions across the world. What can we do?

Until fairly recently, scientists have concentrated on how to prevent the loss of specific populations of plants and animals, but in the last couple of years The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been pursuing a different approach, one based on conserving those landscapes that support the greatest diversity. It uses the analogy of protecting the best “stages” where plants and animals can find new homes as climate change forces migration.

The idea is called “resiliency” and is based on a major study done by TNC of geophysical regions of the eastern United States and Canada. Researchers found that those places with the greatest geological diversity had the greatest biological diversity because granite, gneiss, limestone, sandstone, shale etc. break down into different soil types and erode at different rates, which in turn produces wide variations in elevation: wetlands, dry hilltops and many microhabitats in between. (The presence of limestone is particularly linked to diversity.) For species to move in response to changing climate, these complex landscapes need to be linked one to another. Roads, development and agriculture can all create barriers. Large, interconnected, complex landscapes will provide the most resiliencies.

What does all this mean for local communities? The Open Space Institute, a land conservation organization that has helped preserve over 1.7 million acres across the eastern United States, has joined with the Nature Conservancy to turn the science of resiliency into action. The Norfolk Land Trust is sponsoring a workshop with the Open Space Institute this spring (date to be announced), so that land trusts from the surrounding region can learn about this approach and how to work it into their strategic planning for future land conservation.

One portion of the workshop, which was originally scheduled for January 24, but cancelled due to weather, will look at Great Mountain Forest and its potential for resiliency. As community organizations, local land trusts understandably focus preservation in their township, but working more regionally will be increasingly important for them as they aim to connect the most resilient landscapes in their charge.