Assisted Migration as a Climate Resilience Strategy for Conservation

Abstract

The goals of TNC’s Assisted Migration Project were to document the current range of assisted migration activities within TNC, assess the state of the science, identify key issues of concern, and develop practical guidelines for TNC staff considering the use of assisted migration as a conservation strategy.

The climate is changing, and plants and animals are moving to seek more suitable conditions as their current habitat becomes less hospitable due to warmer temperatures or changing precipitation patterns. Maintaining and in some cases rebuilding landscape connectivity to facilitate this movement is a core strategy in The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) approach to managing for climate resilience. 

Fragmented habitats that restrict species dispersal and a rapidly changing climate that may outpace natural dispersal rates present a compelling argument for land managers to intervene and intentionally translocate species or genetic material to more suitable ranges, a process broadly referred to as assisted migration. 

This project was developed with internal resources in response to a need within The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to better understand staff attitudes and experience with assisted migration, document the state of the science around the practice, and develop resources to support TNC staff making decisions about the implementation of assisted migration. We hope that other conservation practitioners, outside of TNC, will find also find these resources useful.

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Citation

Canick, M.R., Starke, A.F., Anderson, M.G., (2024). Assisted Migration as a Climate Resilience Strategy for Conservation. The Nature Conservancy, Center for Resilient Conservation Science.