Native species will become climate refugees: Report

A new report suggests that global warming isn't just going to endanger many of Australia's animals and plants - it's going to force many of those that do survive to migrate.It's Australia's first national assessment of the effects of climate change on the country's biodiversity.The result of two years' scientific work, it warns that some native species will become "climate refugees" as they're forced to move and adapt to rising temperatures.Dina Rosendorff reports.DINA ROSENDORFF: Cassowaries are found in north-eastern Australia, Kingfishers return south when it becomes a little warmer and Australian Bass spawn in estuaries in the cooler months. They're truisms of Australian biology but that may soon change. In fact a new report says Australia's native plants and animals have already started changing their behaviours and patterns to cope with climate change.Professor Will Steffen is the executive director of the Climate Institute at the Australian National University and the report's lead author.WILL STEFFEN: We're starting to see parrots that are basically coastal birds are now over wintering in Canberra because it's warm enough now for them to over winter there. So you're going to see particularly movements of birds into new areas like that.DINA ROSENDORFF: Professor Steffen says climate change is altering the biodiversity of such natural features as the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian Alps and the Kakadu Wetlands.WILL STEFFEN: Australians will need to I think readjust our view of what biodiversity is and how, and the roles it plays and how valuable it is. For example most of us are used to seeing ecosystems in certain places. It's one of the reasons that we have national parks. We're preserving species and ecosystems where they are. But this is shifting already and it's going to shift even more. So species will move, will move out of a region that they're in. New species will move in.DINA ROSENDORFF: And he says rising temperatures will turn some of our most loved native species into climate refugees.WILL STEFFEN: One of the really intriguing questions I think is when does a native species become invasive because we're used to thinking of exotics as invasive species; like feral cats, like foxes, like cane toads and so on. But as our native species try to shift some of them will have to move reasonably long distances to keep within their environmental envelope. As they move they may actually be unwelcome entrants into existing ecosystems or existing areas.DINA ROSENDORFF: Another of the report's authors professor Patricia Werner says rising temperatures are already having major genetic effects on some animal species.PATRICIA WERNER: One of the most interesting ones right now has to do with bird size. We've known for a long, long time that within a species of bird that they're actually closer to the poles and smaller away from the poles. It's called the Bergman Rule.But we're discovering now that that's actually happening even over the last 100 years looking at museum specimens and comparing the sizes of birds from then to now and they're actually getting smaller, which is what you would expect in response to warmer temperatures.DINA ROSENDORFF: Professor Werner says while some species will learn to adapt to climate change, many won't. And she says some of Australia's most iconic species are the most vulnerable.PATRICIA WERNER: The changes are happening so quickly that it's going to be beyond the ability of some of these species to change very quickly. We need to manage in ways that make space and opportunities to allow species to change either disperse or genetic changes to allow communities to reorganise and to allow ecosystems to continue to function to give us vital services that they do.DINA ROSENDORFF: The report commissioned by the Federal Government is the first national assessment of Australia's biodiversity. It's been launched at the 10th International Congress of Ecology in Brisbane today.It makes five recommendations including the need for an national body to oversee biodiversity management.Professor Werner explains.PATRICIA WERNER: For example there's a flying fox, a grey headed flying fox in Queensland that is moving southward toward the pole and there's a black flying fox in New South Wales that is being pressured a little bit by this grey one. When it comes to policy if you're sitting in Queensland it looks like you've got a bat, or a flying fox in trouble. But actually they're doing a natural translocation southward.If you're sitting in New South Wales it looks like you've got an invasive species and actually the poor things are just trying to, you know, adjust.So we talk about a national approach. We mostly lay it out there as a question that needs to be answered I think by Government and governments.DINA ROSENDORFF: The Environment Minister Peter Garrett says the Federal Government is already adjusting its environmental focus to meet some of the demands listed in the report.PETER GARRETT: There's a challenge there for governments at the Federal, the State and the local level and that is to make sure that in their planning, in their decision making and in their support of environmental policies we look at the whole of Australia's environment. That's what this report tells us. It's something we're acting on.DINA ROSENDORFF: The Opposition's climate change spokesman Greg Hunt says he won't comment until he's seen the report.