The value of stories in providing conservation advice for climate change adaptation

Summary Climate change is a significant challenge for biodiversity conservation in Australia and globally; conservation practitioners, researchers and policymakers need to find new ways to protect species, communities and habitats from the impacts of it. These new approaches – or adaptation interventions – require testing, approvals, permissions, funding and, in many cases, social licence. As such, there is a strong appetite for peer-to-peer sharing of research, new ideas and experiences in adapting biodiversity conservation to climate change, as well as an increasing need to communicate adaptation approaches to decision-makers and communities. We surveyed 80 people working in biodiversity conservation in Australia to elicit the ways in which stories about adaptation are used to support the planning and implementation of adaptation interventions and what information is most useful in these learning examples. We found that individuals working in biodiversity conservation in Australia have diverse roles and areas of focus. Accordingly, there are diverse needs and uses for stories, and there is a large and unmet appetite for accessible, relevant and credible information. Our findings could help guide the development and sharing of learning examples in the rapidly growing field of climate change adaptation for biodiversity conservation that will speed progress towards implementation.