Human Climate Migration and Biodiversity

  • When the changing climate causes human migration, what are the consequences for biodiversity? What strategies, actions, interventions, and policies can ensure human coexistence with wildlife and equitable and sustainable resource governance following human climate migration?

Climate change has emerged as a potent driver of human mobility, potentially displacing >200 million people by 2050. This has clear implications for human development, food security, and well-being, yet the implications for biodiversity remain unclear.

This SNAPP working group explores the consequences of human climate migration for biodiversity through 1) a global assessment of human migration and biodiversity co-occurrence or “hotspots,” and 2) regional assessments of the impacts and opportunities for priority species conservation in four diverse, human-climate-migration landscapes—Colombia, Mongolia, China, and Tanzania. We will develop tailored frameworks for socio-ecological resilience planning for human climate migration.

Team Status:

  • New

Goals

  • Assess where projections of human in- and out-migration co-occur with hotspots for biodiversity, protected areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, and areas of high ecological integrity and critical natural assets
  • Improved projections of human climate migration and priority species distributions to better understand and plan for sustainable human-wildlife coexistence in four high-impact countries
  • Develop an adaptable, locally grounded framework that outlines pathways for sustainable and just natural resources governance, to be implemented by WCS, TNC, and partners in a future phase of the project
  • Inform prioritization of regions for habitat protection, management, and restoration through explicit consideration of human climate migration

Teams

Leaders

Kanta Kumari Rigaud

  • The World Bank

Bryan Jones

  • Baruch College, The City University of New York

Paul Elsen

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Members

Fortunata Msoffe

  • Wildlife Division, Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism

Tuyeni Mwampamba

  • The Nature Conservancy

Warda Kanagwa

  • The Nature Conservancy

Alice Laguardia

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Aaron Nicholas

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Purevjav Lkhagvajav

  • Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation

Yunden Bayarjagal

  • The Nature Conservancy

Buuveibaatar Bayarbaatar

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Juanita Gonzalez

  • The Nature Conservancy

Esteban Payan

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

German Forero Medina

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Koko Warner

  • International Organization for Migration, United Nations

Ricardo Safra De Campos

  • University of Exeter

Elizabeth Ferris

  • Georgetown University

Aimin Wang

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Zhifeng Liu

  • Beijing Normal University

Ying Li

  • Yanbian University

Ginger Allington

  • Cornell University

Viviane Clement

  • The World Bank

Scott Waller

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Heidi Kretser

  • Wildlife Conservation Society

Advisors

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