Planning for climate change without climate projections?

This chapter explores the relative uncertainty associated with popular approaches to conservation planning in the face of climate change. Concern about uncertainties inherent in climate-change projections and associated ecological impacts have led many in the conservation community to avoid climate modeling, and instead favor forecast-free approaches that involve increasing connectivity and protecting “nature’s stage” (geophysical settings) to produce climate-smart conservation plans. A comparison of each of these approaches reveals that the uncertainties associated with connectivity modeling and mapping geophysical settings can be as large, if not larger than, the uncertainties associated with climate-change projections. Whereas the uncertainties of climate forecasts are widely appreciated, the same cannot be said for the approaches that avoid climate forecasts. It is not the case that there is one best approach. The answer to uncertainty is to seek robust conservation plans that work regardless of which approach is taken.