Climate adaptation benefits provide guidance to conservation practitioners on how to align their actions to avoid or minimise climate-related biodiversity loss. However, to achieve this some long-held principals need to be challenged. We cannot rely on strategies that seek to reconstruct or hold on to species and ecosystems in the places they were once found but are less suited to under future climate. Change must be accepted as inevitable, but we can influence the nature of that change and thereby conserve values, albeit within a dynamic setting.

Manage benefits are based on the principle of maximising the representation of pre-clearing native vegetation communities by conserving existing vegetation. Many species will need to shift to adapt to a changing climate. This layer two band spatial GeoTif raster layer depicts locations that are suitable for protecting depleted communities now (blue), those that will become increasingly important in the future (red), and those that remain important throughout the process (white).

As species range shifts are a process that occurs over time, at various rates, it is critical to conserve current distributions as well as prepare for future changes. Some areas are important now and remain important into the future, although their species composition may change. Such areas deserve particular attention.

Benefits were derived using all NARCliM 1.0 and 3C climate futures, topographically downscaled to 250m resolution.

Values in each band are scaled to between 0 (no benefit) and 255 (high benefit). Darker areas reflect lower benefit values and lighter areas reflect higher benefit values. Colours approach white where high benefit values overlap.