Pacific Rim Conservation

grant award: $99,000; year awarded: 2022

The most intact coastal ecosystems are often those that house enormous seabird colonies, yet are also eroding the fastest due to climate-change-driven sea level rise. This requires transformative conservation responses to restore seabird colonies in higher elevation habitats, often where seabirds are declining or are already absent. Restoring seabirds and their associated coastal ecosystems using translocation has a successful track record, but the process lacks clear policy-level definitions and guidelines for managers to enable to scale. To prevent seabird extinctions and build coastal ecosystems that are resilient to a changing climate, it is necessary to mainstream seabird translocations by developing best practice guidelines and clearly defining implementation pathways for managers. For this project, Pacific Rim Conservation will apply a scientific approach to identify and assess previous seabird restoration successes and failures, develop best practices, work with US agencies and indigenous groups directly to address regulatory constraints and build permitting pathways for active restoration, and prioritize adaptation opportunities for seabirds that can be implemented within the next decade.