Transcript Protected areas and climate change

A report from IUCN-WCPA, The Nature Conservancy, UNDP, Wildlife
Conservation Society, The World Bank and WWF
“ This book clearly articulates for the first
time how protected areas contribute
significantly to reducing impacts of climate
change and what is needed for them to
achieve even more. As we enter an
unprecedented scale of negotiations about
climate and biodiversity it is important that
these messages reach policy makers loud
and clear and are translated into effective
policies and funding mechanisms.”
Lord Nicholas Stern
in his preface to Natural Solutions
Why protected areas?
• Protected area systems are already
established as efficient, successful and
cost effective tools for ecosystem
management
• They have associated laws and policies,
management and governance
institutions, knowledge, staff and
capacity
Why protected areas?
• They contain the only remaining large
natural habitats in many areas
• Opportunities exist to increase their
connectivity at landscape level and their
effective management, so as to enhance
the resilience of ecosystems to climate
change and safeguard vital ecosystem
services
Protected areas and climate
change
• Protected areas are an essential part of
the global response to climate change
• Protected areas can contribute to the
two main responses to climate change
through:
Adaptation
Mitigation
Adaptation
The evidence for the
role of using
protected areas in
ecosystem-based
adaptation strategies
The challenge
• Ecosystem-based adaptation is the use
of biodiversity and ecosystem services
as part of adaptation strategies to help
us cope with the adverse effects of
climate change
but
• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
estimates that 60% of global ecosystem
services are degraded and thus these
services are being lost
The predictions
• Health impacts such as the spread of
disease vectors, heat waves, lack of
clean water impacting on sanitation
• Food shortages through crop failure
• Water shortages impacting drinking
water, irrigation and reduced
hydropower potential
• ‘Natural disasters’: flooding, storms,
drought, wildfire, insect spreads, ocean
acidification
The opportunity
Protected areas provide two key functions
• Protect: maintain ecosystem integrity,
buffer local climate, reduce risks and
impacts from events such as storms and
droughts and sea-level rise
• Provide: maintain essential ecosystem
services that help people cope with
changes in water supplies, fisheries,
disease and agricultural productivity
caused by climate change
Protecting ecosystem integrity
Protected areas can help to reduce the
impact of all but the largest natural
disasters
• Floods: by providing space for
floodwaters to disperse and natural
vegetation can also absorb the impacts of
flooding
• Landslides: stabilising soil and snow to
stop slippage or slow movement once a
slip is underway
• Storm surges: intact natural systems
such as coral reefs, barrier islands,
mangroves, dunes and marshes can all
help blocking storm surges
• Drought and desertification: effective
management systems can control grazing
pressure and intact watersheds help to
keep vital water resources in soils
• Fire: natural vegetation can limit
encroachment in fire-prone areas and
the maintenance traditional
management systems can reduce fire risk
Provide natural resources
Protected areas are proven tools for
maintaining essential natural resources
and services, which in turn can help
increase the resilience and reduce the
vulnerability of livelihoods in the face of
climate change
• Water: forest and wetland protected
areas provide both purer water and
(especially in tropical montane cloud
forests) increased water flow
• Fish resources: marine and freshwater
protected areas conserve and rebuild fish
stocks
• Food: by protecting crop wild relatives to
facilitate crop breeding; through
pollination services; and providing
sustainable food supplies for communities
• Health: habitat protection to slow the
expansion of vector-borne diseases that
thrive in degraded ecosystems; access to
traditional medicines and compounds for
pharmaceuticals
How protected areas
can deliver even more
• Understanding: encourage protected area
managers to assess and manage values
and benefits
• Planning: consider vital ecosystem services
as well as biodiversity in gap analysis
• Restoration and connectivity: major
potential to restore ecosystem integrity
• Resilience: improve ecosystem resilience
particularly when ecosystem services are
under threat
• Adaptive management: protected area
managers need to consider climate
impacts and climate solutions in their
planning and management
• Economics: realise the theoretical –
goods and services from an effectively
managed representative protected area
network could have a value of US$4,4005,200 billion a year
• Integrate: ensure protected areas are
included in national and local adaptation
strategies and management plans
The challenge for protected
areas
• Integrity: ensure that protected areas are
capable of delivering potential services
– Effective management of current areas
– More protection, particularly in underrepresented areas such as freshwater and
marine areas
– Use of all governance and management types
• Trade-offs: guidance on how we manage
climate impacts on biodiversity and
ecosystem-based adaptation strategies
• Resilience: research and management
advice to understand how we build
resilience of protected areas
• Partnerships: with relevant sectors and
communities – disaster relief agencies,
seed companies, water companies,
fishers, farmers etc
• Policy: enabling environment linking
biodiversity and climate change policy
Mitigation
The potential to use protected areas
in carbon storage and capture
The challenge
• Vegetation loss is already responsible
for around 20% of global greenhouse
gas emissions
…and furthermore…
• Many ecosystems that are currently
sinks for CO2 could soon “flip” and
become net sources due to climate
change and other human impacts
The opportunity
Natural ecosystems offer two key functions
• Storing existing carbon in vegetation and
soils and thus preventing further loss
• Capturing additional carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere and thus reducing net
greenhouse gas levels
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
Carbon storage
• Major carbon stores exist in soil, forest,
peat and inland waters, grassland,
mangroves, coastal marshes and sea grass
• Estimates for the amount of carbon stored
in tropical forests range from 170-250
t/ha. The highest known carbon storage is
in a Eucalyptus forest. Temperate and
boreal forests are also major sinks.
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
Carbon storage
• Peat is probably a larger store – an
estimated 550 Gt stored globally. But 2008
emissions from degraded peat were
estimated at 1,298 Mt, plus over 400 Mt
from peat fires, threatening this store
• Mangroves, sea grass beds and salt
marshes all store substantial amounts of
carbon although these sources have been
largely ignored until now
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
Carbon storage
• Grasslands may hold more than 10% of the
total carbon in the biosphere, but
mismanagement and conversion is causing
major losses in places – grassland remains
one of the most un-protected biomes
• Estimates of soil carbon vary widely but it
is thought to be the largest terrestrial
store. Agriculture is often a source rather
than sink but changes in farming (less
tillage, more organic methods etc) can help
to
buildNature
carbon
stocks
Kinabatangan
Reserve, Sabah,
Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
Carbon capture
Most ecosystems can also
continue to capture carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere
Carbon capture
• Both young and old forests capture
significant amounts of carbon dioxide, as
do peatlands, grasslands and many marine
ecosystems
• Recent research in the Amazon, Congo Basin
and in boreal forests show that old-growth
forests continue to sequester carbon
• The success of sequestration from
commercial forests depends on whether use
is short-term (e.g. newspapers) or long-term
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
Carbon storage and capture
• Knowledge of management needs for
carbon sequestration is also increasing fast
• There is a huge potential to protect natural
ecosystems to help store and capture
carbon – and to supply many other
important goods and services
• But on the other hand, many ecosystems
risk switching from being sinks to sources
of carbon due to degradation and climate
change…
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
How protected areas
can deliver
• Protected areas are the most effective tool
yet found for maintaining carbon in natural
vegetation
• The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring
Centre estimates that 15% of terrestrial
carbon is stored in protected areas
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
The challenge for protected
areas
• New skills, tools and funding
opportunities will be needed to make best
use of available management options
• Gap analysis for protected area design
may need to start including carbon
• New staff skills will be required
• Protected areas need to be included in
REDD and similar funding schemes
Policy responses
Opportunities to use
protected areas in
climate response
strategies need to be
prioritised by
national and local
governments
Policy requirements
• UNFCCC: recognise protected areas as
tools for mitigation and adaptation to
climate change; and open up key climate
change related funding mechanisms,
including REDD and adaptation funds, to
the creation, enhancement and effective
management of protected area systems
Policy requirements
• CBD: renew the Programme of Work on
Protected Areas at COP10 to address
more specifically the role of protected
areas in responses to climate change, in
liaison with other CBD programmes
Policy requirements
• National and local governments:
incorporate the role of protected area
systems into national climate change
strategies and action plans, including for
mitigation by reducing the loss and
degradation of natural habitats, and for
adaptation by reducing the vulnerability
and increasing
Natural Solutions
• Natural Solutions is the first report to
review the scientific literature in detail
and make the case for the role of
protected areas in climate change
strategies
• For more information on
the role of protected areas
in coping with the full
report can be downloaded
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