blue moon fund

Global climate change is reality. Rising average temperatures and associated changes in weather patterns have initiated landscape and habitat transformations that will continue more quickly than many species have the capacity to adapt.  

In the past, conservation strategies have focused on areas rich in biodiversity like the Amazonian Basin, or areas extremely sensitive to climate change like the Tibetan Plateau. Regardless of extensive protection from the chainsaws of settlers and business interests, the treasured Amazonian rainforest with all its species diversity will likely become savannah grassland due to climate change. Similarly, the lakes and glaciers of the high Tibetan Plateau will evaporate away beyond the reach of climate change legislation. So what does it take to do “good” conservation now?

At blue moon fund, we strategically focus our conservation efforts on “climate change refugia”. These unique places are rich not only in biodiversity, but also in landscape diversity within relatively small areas. The proximity of many different microclimates within a short distance, usually along altitudinal gradients, means that a broad range of plant and animal species may be able to migrate to more suitable habitat even within the relatively rapid timeframes of global climate change. Weathering the storm of global climate change in these refugia, species can then repopulate habitable areas made available in a more stable future.

One such climate change refuge is the eastern slope of the Andes mountains. Here, a large percentage of the biodiversity found in the Amazonian Basin is represented within a fraction of the land area. The “vertical archipelago” of micro-climates present in the Andes mean that a few meters climb in elevation yields an entirely different temperature and moisture balance. Species fleeing hotter and drier conditions may find the ideal habitat is easily within reach. One day, when the world is a more sustainably managed place and the climate is changing less rapidly, those species residing on the eastern slopes of the Andes can repopulate the Amazonian Basin. The river gorges of eastern Tibet are a similar refuge, with steamy, forested bottoms at only a few hundred meters above sea level rising to 7,000 meter snow peaks over a distance of only a few kilometers. Here, many of the species of Asia may be able to weather the storm of climate change just as the biodiversity of Latin America does so on the eastern slopes of the Andes.

However, species and landscape diversity are not enough. To be true climate change refugia areas need to be protected within a meaningful legal framework, managed by capable institutions, and neighbored or inhabited by communities whose livelihoods do not put the biodiversity of the refugia at risk. To those ends, blue moon fund works not only to delineate and officially recognize protection of landscapes, but also to strengthen the capacity of managing institutions and improve the sustainability of communities drawing their livelihoods from the regions.