Field trip to Lake Clifton and the thrombolites in the Peel-Yalgorup Ramsar site – the largest and most complex Ramsar site in the southern hemisphere.
The hub project Climate-effective management for threatened species and protected places is working to support conservation managers to develop on-ground intervention to address the challenges of our changing climate.
Last month, scientists from the hub project ran two ‘case-study’ workshops to discuss climate adaptation approaches with conservation managers. This was designed to understand stakeholder needs to co-develop decision-support products for planning and implementing climate adaptation interventions to achieve short, medium and long-term climate resilience.
“Both sites have pretty incredible groups of stakeholders. They’re already very successful in terms of their conservation activities through strong collaborations.” said Dr Claire Mason, hub scientist.
The Peel-Yalgorup Ramsar site stakeholders included representatives from the Peel-Harvey Catchment Council, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER), the University of Western Australia (UWA) and multiple NGOs working in the system.
The second site was in Albany for the South Coast region focusing on the Fitz-Stirling priority place. Participants were from DBCA, South Coast NRM, Bush Heritage, UWA and local catchment authorities.
“It’s important to be thinking about climate change and climate adaptation in these areas.
“All these managers and organisations are already thinking about it.
“We’re hoping to provide some useful outputs and tools for these conservation managers to help integrate climate change information into their decision making and planning and on-ground implementation,” noted Dr Mason.
These sites have many important and threatened species, including thrombolites which are one of oldest living organisms on Earth.
The Western Ground Parrot is one of many vulnerable species within the sites that adaptation professionals are looking to protect.
“These areas are internationally recognised biodiversity hotspots, so they’ve got amazing diversity of endemic plants and birds.
“The two case studies are on the frontline of climate change impacts. They’re already experiencing a substantial reduction in rainfall.
“The Ramsar site has been experiencing a reduction in catchment flows alongside increased sea level inundation. They’re facing a lot of challenges with the hydrology of the system,” noted Dr Mason.
This is just the beginning of co-development with stakeholders across Western Australia and the country.
Read more about the work of Climate-effective management for threatened species and protected places.