Recommendation 05
Climate Change and Protected Areas

Nature is dynamic. Science and practice have demonstrated that the one constant in nature is change itself. Global change encompasses many facets – biophysical, socio-economic and political. Almost all of these have profound implications for protected areas. Whereas the socio-economic and political issues have been addressed in other recommendations, participants in several workshop streams at the Vth World Parks Congress recognized that biophysical changes, in particular climate change, demand specific attention. Climate change is global in both cause and effects, altering basic physical parameters of the environment. Climate change and its synergies with other global changes is a new and unprecedented challenge confronting protected areas.

Ecosystems and species will change as climate changes, requiring new protected areas and new management strategies in existing protected areas. Polar ice and glaciers are melting; sea levels are rising. Climate change is exacerbating the problems of invasive alien species and diseases, displacing native species. In combination with growing human populations, human settlement patterns and land use changes, climate change is exerting new demands on limited resources. These changes will require new resources for protected areas to meet their goal of conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Many of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity will occur in tropical countries while the major sources of global greenhouse gases are industrialized countries. This creates equity issues requiring new international funding mechanisms.

Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations leading to global climate change that contribute to species extinctions constitute “dangerous interference in the climate system”. Recent research suggests that climate change associated with doubled pre-industrial CO2 levels may result in high numbers of plant and animal extinctions. Since any extinction is unacceptable, urgent stabilization of global greenhouse gas concentrations is required.

Therefore a two-fold response is needed to protect biodiversity in the face of climate change:

a. Limitation of climate change by stabilizing global greenhouse gas concentrations; and

b. The institution of new conservation strategies that include elements such as the creation of new protected areas that are specifically designed to be resilient to change and the creation of corridors to protect biodiversity from the effects of climate change.

Therefore, recognizing input from other streams, PARTICIPANTS in the workshop stream on Building Comprehensive Protected Area Systems at the Vth World Parks Congress, in Durban, South Africa (8-17 September 2003):

1. CALL ON governments and citizens to recognize the threat posed to protected areas from climate and other global changes;

2. URGE governments to stabilize global greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents species from becoming threatened or extinct due to climate change, by implementing policies (including the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol) that will lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions within their borders and globally;

3. URGE individuals to curtail their consumption of carbon-based fuels as an example to governments and other individuals, and urge individual protected areas to lead by example in installing and interpreting clean energy technologies;

4. CALLS ON IUCN and its members to pursue regional analyses of the impact of climate change on protected areas and the consequent need for new conservation strategies, including:

a. Immediate application and ongoing refinement of existing knowledge and tools for building resilience into protected area networks;

b. A near-term, 5-year goal of freshwater, marine and terrestrial pilot regional studies of climate change impacts on protected areas, each incorporating Regional Climate Models and multi-species modelling; and

c. A long-term,10-year goal of establishing a program of ongoing regional studies of climate change impacts on protected areas covering all areas of the globe;

5. URGE governments, donors and development assistance agencies to establish a global financing mechanism to cover the additional costs incurred by protected areas due to climate change;

6. CALL ON governments, non-government organizations and local communities to identify and designate protected areas that increase representation of species and ecosystems, the persistence of which is found to be jeopardized due to climate change, including:

a. All threatened species by 2012; and

b. All species and ecosystems by 2015;

7. RECOMMEND the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas to:

a. Expand partnerships and deepen their expertise in the provision of advice to practitioners, management agencies and communities on options and guidelines for adapting protected areas to the forces of global change; and

b. Identify and communicate best practices to establish methods to anticipate the impacts and opportunities from global change, and adapt management to those changes;

8. RECOMMEND that the task force on climate change of the IUCN Species Survival Commission work with the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas to make available to protected area managers the names of species which may be at particular risk of extinction due to climate change within their region;

9. RECOMMEND that Governments, and protected area managers and planners, include concepts of resilience and adaptive management of protected areas to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including designing and managing protected area networks flexibly to accommodate adaptations to change; and

10. RECOMMEND that the Vth World Parks Congress evaluate the effectiveness of efforts to incorporate climate change into protected area management and other conservation strategies.

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