A Q&A with Gretta Pecl, the lead author of the new paper ‘Climate-driven ‘species-on-the-move’ provide tangible anchors to engage the public on climate change‘.

Read the full paper discussed here in our Open Access journal.

Read the Plain Language Summary for this paper at Relational Thinking.

Photograph of a sea urchin harvester.
WWF Australia/ Grumpy Turtle Films.

What was the inspiration for this article?

This article emerged from a post-conference workshop after the www.speciesonthemove.com conference held at Kruger National Park in South Africa in 2019. The conference focussed on an interdisciplinary, multi-system understanding of climate-driven species redistribution, and on how we might constructively address the challenges that are emerging from this global redistribution of life on earth. The importance, urgency and complexities of communicating climate change in general was also a hot topic of discussion. Several of the manuscript authors lead or are involved in initiatives that help engage the public in climate change, and the idea of helping people see and understand climate change through the shifts they see in the species around them emerged.

How does your article inform future research?

The redistribution of life on earth affects almost everything – ecosystem structure and function, food security, human health, livelihoods, culture and even the climate itself through feedbacks to the climate system. The provides us collectively with a huge variety of potential pathways for people to understand that climate change affects them personally as individuals. Our paper outlines how climate driven species-on-the-move present us with a strategic opportunity to engage people with climate change by linking to human values, and our deep connections with the places in which we live, in a locally relevant yet globally coherent narrative. Future research could include carefully designed interdisciplinary and experimental research to examine how to best to leverage the concept of species-on-the-move to facilitate public engagement with climate change. Ultimately, we need to make climate change information accessible in ways that people understand and can relate to – we propose the varied implications of the largest redistribution of life on Earth for tens of thousands of years can provide the tangible anchor necessary to connect people to climate change.

Why did you choose People and Nature for your research?

We were after a broad interdisciplinary journal interested in the connections between people and nature – the core topic of our paper, so People and Nature was a perfect fit!

Read the full paper discussed here in our Open Access journal.

Read the Plain Language Summary for this paper at Relational Thinking.

Follow all of the authors and their institutions on Twitter:

Gretta Pecl@GrettaPecl@CMS_Utas, @IMASUTAS
Morgan Tingley@mwtingley@UCLAEEB
Malin Pinsky@pinskylab@RutgersEENR
Fengyi Guo@fyguo@Princeton
Adriana Verges@adriatix@UNSWBees
Curtis Champion@curt_champ
Anna-Sofie Stensgaard@Asstensgaard@UCPH_health, @PREPARE4VBD
Juan Diego Gaitan@JDGaitanEspitia@SWIMSHKU, @hku_science, @ HKUSBS
Jonathan Lenoir@EkoLogIt@CNRS @UMR_EDYSAN @UPJV_Univ
Renuka Badhe@DrRenukaBadhe@WomeninPolarSci @EUPolarBoard
Rachel Kelly@RachelKelly___@CMS_Utas @IMASUTAS
I-Ching Chen@NCKU_CCB@NCKU_official
Julia Santana-Garcon@JSantanaGarcon
Chloe Lucas@ChloeTas
Sabine Henry@SabineHenry3@UNamur
Henry McGhie@Henry_McGhie
Romina Henriques@HenriquesRo@DTUtweet, @UPnasagric