Climate change: a cause for new biodiversity conservation objectives but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater

摘要

The likelihood of dramatic climate change impacts on Australia's biodiversity is increasingly recognized, and with this, the need to adjust the goals of biodiversity management and policy. In particular, it will be important to shift our focus from preserving species and current species composition, towards maintaining ecological and evolutionary processes (Dunlop & Brown 2008; Bennett et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2009). We may need to accept that gradually the giant tingle trees will disappear from the southwest forests and that snow gums may invade areas we currently value as alpine herbfield. But we can reasonably hope that current biota will be replaced by functioning, diverse ecosystems that effectively capture limiting ecological resources and provide ecosystem services, including beautiful places for human enjoyment.