An Australian rodent, whose name was little known, became in 2019 the first mammal officially driven to extinction by climate change. Rising sea levels flooded the burrows of the Melomys rubicola, leading to its disappearance. Three years earlier, a heatwave had severely damaged the Great Barrier Reef. Within weeks, corals in the northern section had died.
To protect species at risk, governments have long established protected areas. In Italy alone, there are more than 800. But when the climate changes rapidly, these areas can risk becoming places that no longer offer safety, effectively trapping animals within them.
This is why protected areas need to be supported by other solutions. One of the simplest, yet most effective, is connecting them so wildlife can move more freely and become more resilient.
1Yes, animals are suffering due to climate change. Heat, drought, and rising sea levels are killing them or forcing them to move.
2Protected areas can face a paradox: they shelter species that may no longer be able to survive within their boundaries.
3The LIFE Natur’Adapt project (2018–2023), in which Fondazione Capellino was the main private partner, developed methods and tools to help protected areas adapt to climate change.
4Through the European Citizens' Initiative Nature has no borders, the Foundation is calling on the EU to improve ecological connectivity across Europe through better coordination between land and freshwater ecosystems.
Climate change is affecting regions and the living beings within them, including animals, in ways that are still only partly understood. It is shifting seasonal patterns, changing the availability of plants and insects that animals depend on for food, pushing climate zones north faster than many species can move, warming the oceans, and increasing extreme weather events.
Protected areas are not exempt. In fact, they can become part of a difficult paradox: a boundary created for protection can turn into a trap during extreme heatwaves, floods, or fires.
In 2022, in Gironde in south west France, an extreme heatwave led to fires that burned more than 20,000 hectares of protected woodland. The impact went far beyond trees. From wild boar to roe deer, from insects to birds, wildlife losses were severe.
This reality helped shape the LIFE Natur’Adapt project, in which the Capellino Foundation played a key role alongside the European Union and public bodies, with an investment of 187,630.08 euros. Réserves Naturelles de France and 10 other partners studied the effects of climate change across 21 protected areas and tested ways to adapt management practices to slow biodiversity loss.
In 2023, the project produced a pratical guide. Rather than a fixed scientific answer, it offers tools for protected area managers across Europe to understand climate change, assess its impacts, and decide how to respond, whether by resisting, adapting, or guiding change, with a focus on ecological corridors and connectivity.
The idea is simple. If animals cannot move through landscapes fragmented by human activity, then those connections need to be restored to allow movement again.
This thinking has led Fondazione Capellino to go beyond funding individual projects and instead use them to demonstrate that ecological connectivity is achievable at scale.
Fragmented habitats can be reconnected, and doing so brings clear benefits. Private individuals willing to invest exist, including Pier Giovanni and Lorenzo Capellino, who in 2018 donated Almo Nature to the Foundation so that all net profits would be returned to nature.
A regenerative approach, the Reintegration Economy can replace extractive systems and support a Europe wide framework for ecological connectivity across land and freshwater ecosystems. To support this goal, Fondazione Capellino as submitted Nature has no borders, a European Citizens’ Initiative to the European Commission. It has received a positive assessment and will soon begin collecting signatures.
Because nature, ultimately, has no borders.
What does this mean?
It means that every time you choose Almo Nature pet food for your dog or cat, part of that choice helps support biodiversity, the living foundation of all life.