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CSIRO, WWF and Australian Government join forces to launch AdaptLog conservation solutions project

CSIRO, WWF and Australian Government join forces to launch AdaptLog conservation solutions project

It’s nighttime on Heron Island, near the Great Barrier Reef in 2019.

A group of scientists gather around a collection of green turtle eggs and gently place them in experimental nests irrigated with seawater to lower their temperature.

The level of human intervention is novel and remarkably practical, but the risk of inaction is too great.

Someone is holding a newborn turtle in their hand.

The temperature of the nests affects the number of females that are born. (Supplied: WWF)

Rising temperatures have warmed the sand: if the turtle eggs get too hot, all the hatchlings will be born female and threaten to destabilize the population of the vulnerable species.

It is one of more than 400 conservation “interventions” now publicly available in a new online database called AdaptLog.

For project leader Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas, it will provide a ray of hope amid news that global warming records surpassed a key target last year.

Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas 2025-01-14 11:01:00

Dr Melbourne-Thomas says “anything we can do to help save time and potentially money by allowing conservationists to share their different approaches is really important.” (ABC News: Young Jordan)

“This is a new tool that can help conservationists think about what to do when environments change incredibly quickly,” said Dr Melbourne-Thomas, senior researcher at the CSIRO.

“Some species are simply not able to keep up with that rate of change naturally, and we need to find new ways of doing things to protect biodiversity.”

“There are climate change threats included in the database that relate to wildfires, droughts, floods, extreme temperatures, and often users face several of those threats.”

The online resource is unique in Australia: a list of innovative conservation projects presented in detail and supported by the federal government’s Natural Environmental Sciences Program (NESP) Climate Systems Centre, CSIRO and the World Wildlife Fund ( WWF) of Australia.

Its goal is to showcase conservation solutions at home and abroad that address climate impacts on vulnerable places and species.

Several patches of sand are surrounded with plastic wire to indicate where the eggs are buried.

Artificial green turtle nests have been installed with irrigation systems that use seawater to cool the eggs. (Supplied: WWF)

Conservation takes time and resources, but Dr Melbourne-Thomas said bringing creative solutions together in one space could speed up the process.

“There is a big cost in responding to these impacts, and anything we can do to help save time and potentially money by allowing conservationists to share their different approaches is really important,” he said.

Urgency and innovation

A large white bird perches next to a cylindrical nest.

Artificial nests for shy albatrosses have been installed on Albatross Island, an 18-hectare nature reserve between Tasmania and King Island, one of only three places where the bird is known to nest. (Supplied: WWF)

A person wearing an orange high-visibility helmet and hard hat watches as a wooden box is lowered into a helicopter.

The artificial nests are transported by air to Albatross Island, off the coast of northwest Tasmania. (Supplied: WWF)

The project was born through another intervention at the other end of the country, off the northwest coast of Tasmania.

Dr Claire Mason was helping to install artificial Shy Albatross nests on Albatross Island, an 18 hectare nature reserve and one of three islands where this vulnerable bird breeds, in a bid to improve breeding success rates.

The population of shy albatrosses, a medium-sized Tasmanian seabird, has declined, partly due to commercial fishing activities, but also due to warmer air temperatures during the breeding season.

Dr. Claire Mason 2025-01-14

Dr. Claire Mason. (ABC News: Young Jordan)

The artificial nest project was considered a success, but it also sparked Dr. Mason’s interest in documenting other novel and innovative approaches to protecting animals and the environment.

The publicly accessible list now includes a wide range of conservation projects: sprinkler systems installed in trees in Bendigo’s Rosalind Park to protect flying foxes from the heat; fire resistant nest boxes for threatened gliders in Tallaganda National Park and East Gippsland; or mounds built in Nepal to provide elevated shelter for one-horned rhinos during floods.

A person dressed in high-visibility green and a climbing harness secures a white box to the trunk of a rubber tree.

Installation of fireproof nest boxes in Tallaganda National Park, New South Wales. (Supplied: WWF)

A small marsupial with dark gray fur pokes its head out of a hole in the side of a tree.

A greater glider nesting in a eucalyptus tree in Tallaganda National Park. (Supplied: WWF)

“With a challenge like climate change, you really need innovation,” Dr. Mason said.

“And innovation is really encouraged when you can look at different examples of what people are doing around the world, and be able to see them all in one place.”

Dr Melbourne-Thomas said the AdaptLog tool was live and being used on new and ongoing projects.

“We are working in specific places in Australia to really use these tools, working with conservation managers on the ground and with traditional owners to help think about future adaptation planning for those places.”

Creative solutions needed

WWF Marine Species Program Director Elouise Haskin helped lead the project to cool turtle eggs on Heron Island.

Since 2018, several methods have been developed, tested and replicated to reduce thermal conditions on turtle beaches.

“We realized that in cases where these types of effects are quite extreme, intervention might be necessary,” he said.

Green Turtle Watering Heron Island

In 2019, conservation teams conducted experiments to better understand whether seawater irrigation could be effective in reducing sand temperatures and preventing the “feminization” of green turtle eggs.

(Supplied: WWF)

Haskin said the project, a joint effort between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Queensland, involved direct intervention, something that has become more common as climate change forces scientists to act quickly. .

“In the past it was more about monitoring and seeing what happens,” he said.

“With more and more cases, we get enough information to understand that populations are really at risk.”

Being able to use access to previous conservation efforts, he said, would be a valuable help in developing future strategies.

“It’s also a set of tools to understand the science and potentially get in touch with the people who did it and learn from them,” Ms Haskin said.

“Conservationists tend to be quite collaborative and willing to help each other figure out how we can address these kinds of problems.”

Hope in a warm climate

The timing of the database launch does not go unnoticed by the AdaptLog team.

“Global average temperatures have just surpassed this threshold of 1.5 degrees above their pre-industrial levels, posing a fairly significant threat to species and ecological communities,” Dr Melbourne-Thomas said.

Another study published by the CSIRO Last month also worries Dr. Melbourne-Thomas.

It found that fully recovering Australia’s threatened species would cost 25 per cent of its GDP annually.

Or in dollars, approximately $583 billion per year.

The AdaptLog team is hopeful that its database will inspire innovation and creativity in the face of new challenges of climate change.

“The more we can share stories that create hope, the more we can do that, the better,” Dr. Melbourne-Thomas said.