Local conservation can boost the climate resilience of coastal ecosystems, species and cities and buy them precious time in their fight against sea-level rise, ocean acidification and warming temperatures, a new paper by scientists at Duke University and Fudan University suggests.
Local conservation can boost the climate resilience of coastal ecosystems, species and cities and buy them precious time in their fight against sea-level rise, ocean acidification and warming temperatures, a new paper by scientists at Duke University and Fudan University suggests.
The peer-reviewed paper, published Oct. 7 in Current Biology, comes at a time when scientists are divided on whether to continue investing in local efforts to protect threatened places and populations or shift much of that investment toward global efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
“The answer is, you need both,” said Brian R. Silliman, Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
“Our analysis of local conservation efforts shows that in all but extreme situations, these interventions significantly buffer the impacts of climate change and can buy our sinking cities and bleaching corals time to adapt until the beneficial impacts of global emissions reductions kick in,” Silliman said.
Read more at Duke University
Image: As sea-level rise accelerates, steps in the sinking city of Venice, Italy, have become part of the intertidal zone. (Credit: Brian Silliman, Duke. Univ.)
