There is now a great scientific consensus that our climate is changing and human activity is the most likely cause . . .

Predictions are for warmer, drier summers, wet winters, more storms, intense rain and windstorms and continuing sea level rise. But this is a global picture; the effect on Sussex is less clear.

What will happen in our own county is highly unpredictable and will probably be extremely variable, potentially flipping our current climate into a new and unknown state.

Nevertheless, uncertainty about how climate change will unfold must not prevent us from taking action. It is imperative that we expand our landscape boundaries allowing nature the time and space to avert a disaster that could otherwise accelerate the decline of wildlife and damage habitats irretrievably.

Sussex Wildlife Trust has identified four key areas to combat the affects of climate change:

• Conserve our current wildlife and wild places
  
• Create large areas for wildlife and establish ecological networks
  
• Increase variety in our landscape
  
• Reduce damage to nature from sources other than climate change
  

A strategy for conserving our environment and wildlife against the background of an unpredictable and changing climate must present the best course of action in an unpredictable world.

At Sussex Wildlife Trust we are working towards developing an adaptable environment. This ‘living landscape’ approach will ensure an environment that can respond to change.

While our strategy is aimed at improving the ability of wildlife in our environment to adapt, this alone is not enough. It is imperative that other strategies are delivered by governments and people around the world, working together to reduce the main cause of climate change – now identified as the continually growing emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Weathering the Changes document presents a summary of our strategy and how we plan to encourage conditions to allow our wildlife to adapt to a change of climate. We will focus less on management for plants, animals and their habitats, working more towards establishing the physical and ecological conditions that will provide longer term benefits.

Download Weathering the Changes Document

• Summary (3MB pdf)
  
• Full Report (2MB pdf)
  Printed copies of the full report are available from April 21. Please call Amanda Solomon on 01273 497523.
  

CALL TO ACTION
We call on everyone: government organisations, local and regional authorities, businesses, landowners and individual people, to pick up these key themes and do their bit to create a liveable world against the uncertain future of climate change.