Download Ecosystem-based adaptation strategies

Adaptation
The evidence for the
role of using
protected areas in
ecosystem-based
adaptation strategies
sue stolton
equilibrium research
The challenge
• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
estimates that 60% of global
ecosystem services are degraded
but
• Ecosystem-based adaptation the use
of biodiversity and ecosystem services
as part of adaptation strategies to help
us cope with the adverse effects of
climate change
The predictions
• Health impacts spread of disease
vectors, heat waves, lack of clean water
• Food shortages and crop failures
• Water shortages and reduced
hydropower potential
• ‘Natural disasters’: flooding, storms,
drought, wildfire, insect spreads, ocean
acidification
The role of protected areas
• Protect: maintain ecosystem integrity,
buffer local climate, reduce risks and
impacts from extreme events such as
storms, 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
Ecosystem integrity
Protected areas can help to reduce the
impact of all but the largest natural
disasters
• Floods: providing space for floodwaters
to disperse and absorbing impacts with
natural vegetation
• Landslides: stabilising soil and snow to
stop slippage and slowing movement
once a slip is underway
• Storm surges: blocking storm surges
with coral reefs, barrier islands,
mangroves, dunes and marshes
• Drought and desertification: reducing
grazing pressure and maintaining
watersheds and water retention in soil
• Fire: limiting encroachment into fireprone areas, maintaining traditional
management systems
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: 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 and pollination
services; providing sustainable food
supplies for communities
• Health: ranging from habitat protection to
slow the expansion of vector-borne
diseases that thrive in degraded
ecosystems to access to traditional
medicines
How to deliver
• Understanding: encourage protected area
managers to assess 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
• 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
included in national and local adaptation
strategies and management plans
Our challenge
• Integrity: ensure that protected areas are
capable of delivering potential services
• Adaptive management: protected area
managers need to consider climate
impacts and climate solutions in their
planning and management
• Trade-offs: guidance on how we manage
for biodiversity and climate adaptation
• Policy: linking biodiversity and climate
change policy will help direct
Remember the message
• Ecosystem-based adaptation uses
biodiversity and ecosystem services in an
overall adaptation strategy
• Ecosystem-based adaptation strategies
uses the sustainable management,
protection and restoration of ecosystems
to maintain services that help people
cope with the effects of climate change
• Protected areas are ideally placed to
build ecosystem resilience and deliver
ecosystem-based adaptation strategies