The evidence is now clear that ecological change in response to climate change is unavoidable. Future NRM plans will need to allow for substantial changes in biodiversity, despite the unpredictable nature of these changes. To facilitate this planning we describe a new approach, using generalized dissimilarity modelling, to forecast and envisage potential broad shifts in biodiversity in response to climate change scenarios. We provide background about the approach, and present results that describe the potential implications of climate change for four terrestrial biological groups - vascular plants, mammals, reptiles and amphibians - across Australia. We show how the models can be used to produce maps of various types that indicate priority areas for proactive biodiversity management. These include maps of the potential degree of ecological change, disappearing and novel environments, potential vegetation redistribution, changes in the effective area of similar environments, and interactions with land use. We demonstrate these with worked examples of how this information can be applied to inform plans for natural resource management.