Q & A: The wildlife-climate connection

Mary MacDonald, WWF-Canada’s chief conservation officer, breaks down how climate change impacts wildlife loss — and why nature-based solutions can help us deal with these dual crises.

We’re a wildlife organization, so why are we talking about climate change?

The number one reason we’re focusing on climate change is because it’s a huge driver of habitat loss. Species live in sync with the natural ecosystems they’ve been part of for thousands of years. Climate change causes shifts in temperature, rain and snowfall along with increased numbers of severe storms and wildfires. These changes disrupt or destroy habitat, and wildlife then lose food sources and places to give birth or raise their young. Climate change also removes markers that migratory species depend on to find their way.

What will happen to wildlife populations in Canada if we don’t start tackling climate change?

We’ve already seen the evidence of habitat loss and disruption  reflected in the decline of wildlife populations throughout Canada. Our analysis has shown that over 50 per cent of monitored species in Canada have declined by an average of 83 per cent between 1970 and 2014. This an astonishing and deeply troubling trend.

What’s WWF-Canada doing on this front?

Habitat loss and the accelerating impacts of climate change go hand in hand, so we’re focusing most of our efforts on restoring, rewilding and stewarding habitat in areas where wildlife decline is high. Restoration and long-term monitoring of vital land, rivers and coastal habitats as well as complex forest ecosystems informed by long-held Indigenous knowledge not only improve the odds for wildlife but also help us fight climate change, because the destruction of plants, trees and carbon-rich soils releases greenhouse gases.

Do we still have a chance to get ahead of the wildlife losses that will result from climate change?

It will take tremendous commitment and resources but, over time, it is possible to reverse habitat loss in Canada. The great thing about restoration to healthy wildlife habitat is that the benefits of these actions increase over time, especially over the next 10 to 15 years. As plants and trees on land and in coastal areas grow, they pull in larger and larger amounts of the excess carbon from the atmosphere. We’re fortunate that what’s good for wildlife is also good for addressing the impacts of the climate crisis and for people as well.

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‘It’s very easy to save a species’: how Carl Jones rescued more endangered animals than anyone else

Without Jones, the world might have lost the Mauritius kestrel, the pink pigeon, the echo parakeet and more – but the biologist’s methods are controversial

 ‘You’ve got to start with solutions, otherwise you do nothing’ … Jones at home in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Photograph: Richard Jones for the Guardian

Jones challenges the classic conservation wisdom that we must first precisely understand the reasons for a species’ decline and then restore its habitat. Instead, he argues that scientists must tweak the limiting factors on a species’ population – food, nesting sites, competition, predation, disease – with practical fieldwork.

“If there’s a shortage of food, you start feeding. If there’s a shortage of nest sites, you put up nest boxes. You don’t need endless PhD students studying a species for 20 years.”

Conservation science, he argues, is often too remote. “Do you sit back and monitor a sick patient or do you treat them and see what works? A lot of species have been studied to extinction.” MORE