Sep. 19, 2011 More species could be saved from extinction under
climate change thanks to a new model scientists have developed
to guide allocation of conservation funding. The international
team, led by Dr Brendan Wintle of the University of Melbourne
and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, is
the first to develop a pioneering decision-support model that
incorporates both ecological and economic information to guide
conservation investment in the face of climate change. The work
is published on September 19 in the journal Nature Climate
Change. "The best part about this model is that it can be
applied to a range of environments, including many of
Australia's native ecosystems, to suggest how to allocate
funding," Dr Wintle said. Although scientists knew that high
extinction rates were predicted to increase under climate
change, there was little advice to guide how money could be best
spent to minimise extinctions. "Our analysis supports the
existing evidence that climate change will subs