Conclusions: Conservation in the Anthropocene - Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Change - page 170

and Marchant 2014). Long-term data can help in designing management plans that accom-
modate long-term ecological processes such as forest regeneration and infrequent distur-
bances (Birks 2012). A multiscaled perspective can help in reframing conservation problems
and visions in terms that are cognisant of the legacy of past disturbance, land management,
and climate change, and how the interacting effects of climate, environment, ecology and
land-use play out at global, regional, landscape, and local scales (Willis et al. 2007, Dearing
et al. 2010, 2012, Gillson and Marchant 2014).
Benchmarks, baselines, and thresholds of potential concern
Fixed conservation targets are unlikely to be realistic in a changing environment, and it is
more feasible and ecologically sound to work out the likely range of variability using data
from current landscapes, past environmental change and future scenarios, then to define a
range of variability that is ecologically feasible and socially desirable (Keane et al. 2009, Biggs
et al. 2011, McLoughlin et al. 2011, Gillson and Marchant 2014). A longer-term view from pal-
aeoecology and historical ecology can help in designing adaptive management plans and
thresholds of potential concern that are appropriate to present and future climate, as well as
sensitive to local context and the history of land management.
While pre-Anthropocene/pre-industrial 'baselines' have intuitive appeal as conservation
benchmarks, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were unusually cold and therefore
likely to be unrealistic in today's warming climate. A much longer-term perspective is needed,
and looking at the effects of past warm periods can help in predicting changes in species dis-
tribution and community composition. This understanding can be used to inform manage-
ment that restores or maintains resilient ecosystems that are well adapted to twenty-first
century climate. The Medieval Warm Period, mid-Holocene altithermal and past interglaci-
als all provide important reference points that are more useful than the preindustrial/
pre-Anthropocene era when temperatures were unusually cold (see chapter 5) (MacDonald
et al. 2008, Willis and MacDonald 2011). Similarly, in terms of fire management, there is a
trend towards reversing the unfeasible fire suppression policies of the twentieth century, but
baseline data is lacking and the period immediately prior to the Anthropocene was a time of
unusual fire regimes because of the cooler conditions and altered fuel loads of the Little Ice
Age (Marlon et al. 2008, Daniau et al. 2012, Kehrwald et al. 2013). Past warm periods can thus
provide understanding of the interacting effects of fire and climate in different ecosystems,
potentially informing fire management strategies at landscape scales that ameliorate some of
the effects of climate change (see chapter 4).
Long-term data can be used to define the historic range of variability, thereby informing
thresholds of potential concern (TPCs) (see Chapters 2, 4, and 5) that are based on a good
understanding of how biodiversity and ecosystem services have changed over time, and
insight into what might happen if ecological thresholds are reached (Rogers and Biggs 1999,
Gillson and Duffin 2007, Biggs et al. 2011). With this information, it should be possible to make
an intelligent estimate of the range of ecological possibilities, then to define the boundaries of
the desired state, through scientific knowledge, expert opinion, and stakeholder engagement