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Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal

Climate change has started impacting species, ecosystems, genetic diversity within species, and ecological interactions and is thus a serious threat to conserving biodiversity globally. In the absence of adequate adaptation measures, biodiversity may continue to decline, and many species will possib...

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Autores principales: Pant, Ganesh, Maraseni, Tek, Apan, Armando, Allen, Benjamin L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8757373/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35047240
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12795
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author Pant, Ganesh
Maraseni, Tek
Apan, Armando
Allen, Benjamin L.
author_facet Pant, Ganesh
Maraseni, Tek
Apan, Armando
Allen, Benjamin L.
author_sort Pant, Ganesh
collection PubMed
description Climate change has started impacting species, ecosystems, genetic diversity within species, and ecological interactions and is thus a serious threat to conserving biodiversity globally. In the absence of adequate adaptation measures, biodiversity may continue to decline, and many species will possibly become extinct. Given that global temperature continues to increase, climate change adaptation has emerged as an overarching framework for conservation planning. We identified both ongoing and probable climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros conservation in Nepal through a combination of literature review, key informant surveys (n = 53), focus group discussions (n = 37) and expert consultation (n = 9), and prioritised the identified adaptation actions through stakeholder consultation (n = 17). The majority of key informants (>80%) reported that climate change has been impacting rhinoceros, and more than 65% of them believe that rhinoceros habitat suitability in Nepal has been shifting westwards. Despite these perceived risks, climate change impacts have not been incorporated well into formal conservation planning for rhinoceros. Out of 20 identified adaptation actions under nine adaptation strategies, identifying and protecting climate refugia, restoring the existing habitats through wetland and grassland management, creating artificial highlands in floodplains to provide rhinoceros with refuge during severe floods, and translocating them to other suitable habitats received higher priority. These adaptation actions may contribute to reducing the vulnerability of rhinoceros to the likely impacts of climate change. This study is the first of its kind in Nepal and is expected to provide a guideline to align ongoing conservation measures into climate change adaptation planning for rhinoceros. Further, we emphasise the need to integrating likely climate change impacts while planning for rhinoceros conservation and initiating experimental research and monitoring programs to better inform adaptation planning in the future.
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spelling pubmed-87573732022-01-18 Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal Pant, Ganesh Maraseni, Tek Apan, Armando Allen, Benjamin L. PeerJ Biodiversity Climate change has started impacting species, ecosystems, genetic diversity within species, and ecological interactions and is thus a serious threat to conserving biodiversity globally. In the absence of adequate adaptation measures, biodiversity may continue to decline, and many species will possibly become extinct. Given that global temperature continues to increase, climate change adaptation has emerged as an overarching framework for conservation planning. We identified both ongoing and probable climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros conservation in Nepal through a combination of literature review, key informant surveys (n = 53), focus group discussions (n = 37) and expert consultation (n = 9), and prioritised the identified adaptation actions through stakeholder consultation (n = 17). The majority of key informants (>80%) reported that climate change has been impacting rhinoceros, and more than 65% of them believe that rhinoceros habitat suitability in Nepal has been shifting westwards. Despite these perceived risks, climate change impacts have not been incorporated well into formal conservation planning for rhinoceros. Out of 20 identified adaptation actions under nine adaptation strategies, identifying and protecting climate refugia, restoring the existing habitats through wetland and grassland management, creating artificial highlands in floodplains to provide rhinoceros with refuge during severe floods, and translocating them to other suitable habitats received higher priority. These adaptation actions may contribute to reducing the vulnerability of rhinoceros to the likely impacts of climate change. This study is the first of its kind in Nepal and is expected to provide a guideline to align ongoing conservation measures into climate change adaptation planning for rhinoceros. Further, we emphasise the need to integrating likely climate change impacts while planning for rhinoceros conservation and initiating experimental research and monitoring programs to better inform adaptation planning in the future. PeerJ Inc. 2022-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8757373/ /pubmed/35047240 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12795 Text en ©2022 Pant et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Pant, Ganesh
Maraseni, Tek
Apan, Armando
Allen, Benjamin L.
Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal
title Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal
title_full Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal
title_fullStr Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal
title_full_unstemmed Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal
title_short Identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in Nepal
title_sort identifying and prioritising climate change adaptation actions for greater one-horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis) conservation in nepal
topic Biodiversity
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8757373/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35047240
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12795
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