Can Planting Natives Help Address the Impacts of Climate Change?
Of course any plant will help to combat climate change by locking up
carbon in its growing tissue. So why plant natives when any plant will
do?
One of the major impacts of climate change is on biodiversity.
Biodiversity is the variety of all living things. Before Climate Change
was the "hot" topic in the environmental debate, the loss of
biodiversity was internationally recognised as being the major threat
facing the future of life on our planet. This threat hasn't gone away,
in fact Climate Change has only made combating this threat even more of
a challenge.
Apart from the actions that we all must take to reduce our impact on
the warming climate, it is vital that we act to help our native
wildlife have the best possible chance of adapting to these changing
conditions and not go down the path towards extinction.
One important activity is the creation of native corridors of
vegetation to connect existing areas of intact bushland. Scientists
predict that with a warming planet, many plants and animals will have
to migrate (this would happen very slowly in the case of plants!) to
find the conditions that will allow them to thrive - for example,
moving gradually south or to higher elevations to find relatively
cooler conditions as their original habitat warms. Unfortunately, for
some species, this may not be possible. There is much concern for the
Mountain Pygmy possum, for example, that lives among boulder-strewn
slopes high in the Australian alps.
Although we may not be able to save every species, there are some
fantastically inspiring projects out there, devising continental-scale
measures to combat these global challenges. One such example is the
"Atherton to Alps" initiative, connecting green corridors on a
continental scale - leading some to describe the concept as a green
great barrier-reef in scale! Over in WA a similar program is in place,
called Gondwanalink.
