AdaptLog: a continually updated resource for conservation practitioners grappling with climate change

CSIRO, WWF and Australian government team up to launch AdaptLog conservation solutions project

By Clancy Balen

in ABC.net.au

Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas says AdaptLog is a “new tool that can help conservationists think about what to do when environments are changing incredibly quickly”. (ABC News: Jordan Young)

In short:

A new online tool called AdaptLog will help conservationists share and compare over 400 novel solutions to climate threats from projects overseas and across Australia.

The project’s team hopes it will inspire innovation and optimism amid grim global warming metrics.

What’s next?

Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas, a principal research scientist at the CSIRO, says the tool is being applied to new and ongoing projects across Australia.

It’s night-time on Heron Island, near the Great Barrier Reef in 2019.

A group of scientists gather around a collection of green turtle eggs, gently placing them in experimental nests irrigated with seawater to lower their temperature.

The level of human intervention is novel and notably hands-on, but the risk of not acting is too great.

The temperature of nests affects how many females are born. (Supplied: WWF)

Rising temperatures have warmed the sand — If the turtle’s eggs become too hot, the hatchlings will all be born females and threaten to destabilise the vulnerable species’s population.

It’s one of over 400 conservation “interventions” that are now publicly available in a new online database called AdaptLog.

For project lead Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas,  it will provide a glimmer of hope amid the news that global warming records blew past a key target last year.

Dr Melbourne-Thomas says “anything we can do to help save time and potentially money by enabling conservationists to share their different approaches is really important”. (ABC News: Jordan Young)

“This is a new tool that can help conservationists think about what to do when environments are changing incredibly quickly,” Dr Melbourne-Thomas, a principal research scientist at the CSIRO, said.

“Some species just aren’t able to keep up with that rate of change naturally, and we’re needing to find new ways of doing things to protect biodiversity.”

“There’s threats from climate change included in the database that relate to bush fire, drought, flooding, extreme temperatures, and often users are dealing with several of those threats.”

The online resource is unique in Australia — a list of innovative conservation projects laid out in detail, and supported by the Federal government’s Natural Environmental Science Program (NESP) Climate Systems Hub, the CSIRO and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Australia.

400 conservation “interventions” that are now publicly available in a new online database called AdaptLog.

… online resource is unique in Australia — a list of innovative conservation projects laid out in detail

It’s aim, to showcase conservation solutions at-home and abroad that address climate impacts on vulnerable places and species.

Artificial green turtle nests have been set up with irrigation systems using seawater to cool down eggs. (Supplied: WWF)

Conservation takes time and resources, but Dr Melbourne-Thomas said bringing creative solutions into one space could speed up the process

“There’s a big cost around responding to these impacts, and anything that we can do to help save time and potentially money by enabling conservationists to share their different approaches is really important,” she said.

Urgency and innovation

Artificial nests for shy albatross have been installed on Albatross Island, an 18-hectare nature reserve between Tasmania and King Island — one of only three places the bird is known to nest. (Supplied: WWF)

Artificial nests are airlifted to Albatross Island, off the coast of north-west Tasmania. (Supplied: WWF)

The project started life through another intervention at the other end of the country, off Tasmania’s north-west coast.

Dr Claire Mason was helping to install artificial Shy Albatross nests on Albatross Island — an 18-hectare nature reserve, and one of only three islands where the vulnerable bird breeds — in a bid to improve breeding success rates.

The population of Shy Albatross, a medium-sized Tasmanian seabird, has dwindled, in part from commercial fishing activities, but also due to warmer air temperatures during breeding season.

Dr Claire Mason. (ABC News: Jordan Young)

The artificial nest project was deemed a success, but it also sparked Dr Mason’s interest in documenting other novel and innovative approaches to protect animals and environments.

The publicly accessible list now includes a diverse range of conservation projects: sprinkler systems installed in trees at Bendigo’s Rosalind Park to protect flying foxes from heat; fire-resistant nesting boxes for threatened greater gliders in Tallaganda National Park and East Gippsland; or mounds constructed in Nepal to provide elevated refuge for one-horned rhinos during floods.

Fireproof nesting boxes being installed in Tallaganda National Park, New South Wales. (Supplied: WWF)

A greater glider nesting in a eucalypt tree in Tallaganda National Park. (Supplied: WWF)

“With a challenge like climate change, it really needs innovation,” Dr Mason said.

“And innovation is really fostered when you can look at different examples from what people are doing out there, things all around the world, and being able to see them all in one place.”

Dr Melbourne-Thomas said AdaptLog the tool was live, and it was being used in new and ongoing projects.

“We’re working in particular places around Australia to actually use these tools, working with conservation managers on the ground and with traditional owners to help to think about future adaptation planning for those places.”

Creative solutions needed

WWF marine species program manager Elouise Haskin helped lead the project to cool down turtle eggs on Heron Island.

Since 2018, various methods have been developed, trialled and replicated to reduce the thermal conditions on the turtle’s beaches.

“We realised in instances where these sorts of effects are quite extreme, intervention might be necessary,” she said.

In 2019, conservation teams conducted experiments to better understand if seawater irrigation could be effective at lowering sand temperatures, averting ‘feminisation’ of green turtle eggs.   (Supplied: WWF)

Ms Haskin said the project, a joint effort between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Queensland, involved direct intervention — something that has become more common as changing climates force scientists to act quickly.

“In the past it was more of a monitor and see-what-happens approach,” she said.

“In more and more cases, we’re getting enough information to understand that populations are actually at risk.”

Being able to use access past conservation efforts, she said, would be a valuable aid in developing future strategies.

“It’s also a toolkit to understand the science and potentially get in touch with the people who did it and learn from them,” Ms Haskin said.

“Conservationists are usually pretty collaborative and willing to help each other work out how we can address these sorts of problems.”

Hope in a warming climate

The timing of the database’s launch isn’t lost on the AdaptLog team.

“The global average temperature has just exceeded this threshold of 1.5 degrees above its pre-industrial levels — that’s a pretty significant threat to species and to ecological communities,” Dr Melbourne-Thomas said.

Another study published by the CSIRO last month also has Dr Melbourne-Thomas concerned.

It found fully recovering Australia’s threatened species would cost 25 per cent of its GDP annually

Or in dollars, an estimated $583 billion per year.

The AdaptLog team remains hopeful their database will inspire innovation and creativity in the face of further climate change challenges.

“The more that we can share stories that build hope, the more we can do that, the better,” Dr Melbourne-Thomas said.

Pledge Your Vote Now
Change language