Santa Rita Vineyard
Climate change is affecting the cost of conservation not only in Madagascar, but around the world. Teams of scientists from Chile, South Africa, California, and Madagascar spent this summer trying to estimate the cost burden of climate change on conservation. We all met in the Chilean wine country with a science communications expert to hone and harmonize our messages for an hour-long presentation to the World Conservation Congress in October in Barcelona. The setting for our workshop was a beautiful vineyard dating back to 1880, with hills, birds, cacti, fountains, gardens, and lots of grapes. The Madagascar message sounds something like this: “Protecting Madagascar’s unique plants and animals from climate change requires not only protect existing rainforests, but also planting new rainforests. And that becomes expensive.”
