As most people know, climate change threatens plants and animals alike. It can raise sea levels and scorch already hot desert sands. As temperatures increase, plants and animals will try and move to reach their preferred climates that are moving ever north, but they may not be able to move fast enough. One idea to help prevent entire ecosystems from going extinct is to actually pick them up and move them.

In New Zealand where some native plants were in the way of a new coalmine, they picked them up and placed them in the location of an old coalmine. This is called ecosystem-scale translocation. This already exists for coal mining so the same principle can be used for climate change. The only question that comes into play is which ecosystems should be moved first as climate change is variable across the planet. In addition, some ecosystems are more prone to stress when moved and moving a new ecosystem should not affect an already existing ecosystem in the same location.

While this does not solve the problem of climate change, moving an ecosystem could provide the planet with extra time to move to more renewable sources of energy while maintaining ecosystem biodiversity.

Resource: http://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-entire-ecosystems-lets-pick-them-up-and-move-them-57121