Abstract for presentation at Biodiversity Extinction Crisis Conference - A Pacific Response

Human-forced rapid climate change presents challenges for the conservation of biodiversity. Both direct and indirect impacts can be expected. Conservation management responses are increasingly being considered under the broad banner of 'landscape connectivity'. But, what kinds of things or processes need connecting? This paper discusses the classes of phenomena that are now being referred to as 'connectivity processes', the likely direct and indirect impacts on them of climate change, and the types of landscape linkages in space and time that will need to be maintained, restored or rehabilitated, if we are to minimise harm and maximise prospects for the conservation of species and ecosystems in the coming decades.