‘We need to be thinking bigger, bolder’: Conservationists call for climate change mitigation efforts

NORTHFIELD — With temperatures in New England rising faster than other parts of the world, MassWildlife scientist Rebecca Quiñones said organizations working to mitigate the impacts of climate change need to broaden their thinking on the topic.

“We need to be thinking bigger, bolder. We need to do more, we need to do it faster [and] we need to do it on a larger scale,” Quiñones said during a presentation on how climate change had impacted rivers and watersheds.

The presentation was held at The Brewery at Four Star Farms as part of a fundraiser for Give Back to the Land Day, a collaborative fundraising drive between the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, the Franklin Land Trust, Kestrel Land Trust, Hilltown Land Trust and Connecticut River Conservancy. For its part, Mount Grace had set a goal of raising $20,000, and by the end of Quiñones’ presentation, an auction and raffle, it had raised more than $30,000 to further its land conservation work.

“Give Back to the Land Day is a really critical day for us for raising the funds that we need to continue to protect our farms, our forestland, our waterways, the air we breathe and the wildlife that we admire so much,” Mount Grace Executive Director Emma Ellsworth said. “When we think about protecting farms, forests, wetlands, we’re talking about thousands of conversations between family members, between neighbors, the Mount Grace staff and board members talking about what it means to steward the land that we love so much.

“We’re talking about community and we’re thinking about what comes after. What are we leaving for our kids, for our grandkids? What’s the world we want them to be able to live in?” Ellsworth continued. “It takes a lot of hope to go out on a limb and say, ‘Look, we want to protect this forever.’”

Quiñones said conserving habitats will be key as climate change continues to impact the environment, particularly as studies have shown that temperatures are rising faster in New England than other parts of the world, and while there will still be outlier years with long, cold winters like this past one, they are becoming milder and with less snow.

Climate scientists are estimating that by 2070, the weather in Massachusetts will be similar to the current weather patterns in South Carolina. Quiñones said this is because New England is on the edge of the continent. Because the Atlantic Ocean is not absorbing the heat from the land as quickly as it is being transferred across North America, New England ends up absorbing much of the heat that travels east.

Quiñones said rising temperatures will impact local watersheds due to longer periods of drought, and during these periods, longer sections of rivers will go dry, regions where native plant and animal species can thrive will shrink, and peak flow periods, in which water levels are higher, will shift earlier in the year. These changes are happening faster than plants and animals can adapt to, and a human response to climate change is necessary.

“These changes are happening so much faster, about 40 times faster than these animals evolve,” Quiñones said. “There are some animals that do something called rapid evolution, which they may be able to adapt much quicker to these conditions, but in general, what we’re talking about in these ecosystems, they don’t have the time to respond in a very adaptive way to keep up.”

Quiñones said that’s why climate adaptation and mitigation are necessary. Actions such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and placing land under conservation restrictions can help mitigate the impacts of climate change. She also mentioned that it’s actually beneficial to leave any trees, branches or logs that fall into a river or watershed where they are, as they can then provide habitats for creatures that call the water home, and wood on riverbanks can also prevent erosion.

“You want to have wood in streams. We’ve had many years of people removing wood from streams because they were messy, but in fact they’re very good for providing habitat and retaining sediment,” Quiñones noted.

Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust representatives said fundraisers like Give Back to Land Day — including raffling off breakfast baskets and Mount Grace merchandise, and auctioning off a fly fishing trip with Ellsworth — help support land conservation efforts.

“The threats feel more real than ever,” said Matt Dibona, director of land stewardship at Mount Grace. “I mean, how many of you have had to auction off your boss for conservation?”