by Dr. Mike Connor, WWP California
Desert Tortoise, Photo © Dr. Michael J. Connor
The verdict is still out on what the specific impacts of global climate change really will be for our desert wildlands but government responses are definitely posing new challenges to already stressed wildlife on public lands. Climate change does pose a threat to biodiversity and may even threaten entire ecosystems. Meeting these threats requires more protection of sensitive habitats, particularly those providing connectivity for species movements, to preserve ecological flexibility. Unfortunately, so far the response of the agencies has been just the opposite of what is needed. They are allowing many of the public lands that would provide this flexibility to be considered for the industrial scale development of so-called green energy projects by private industry. (more…)
