Transcript Why protected areas?

A report from IUCN-WCPA, The Nature Conservancy,
United Nations Development Programme,
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 areas are a proven effective
governance system for managing land,
coastal and marine ecosystems
• 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
coverage of marine and coastal areas,
connectivity at a landscape level and
their effective management. All of
which 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
• They can contribute to the two main
responses to climate change through
both:
Adaptation
and
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 so these
services are rapidly being lost
The impacts of degraded
ecosystem services
• Health: spread of disease vectors, heat
waves, poor sanitation due to lack of clean
water
• Food: shortages and crop failure
• Water: shortages impacting drinking
water, irrigation and hydropower potential
• ‘Natural disasters’: flooding, storms,
drought, wildfire, pest infestations, 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, for example
• Floods: by providing space for
floodwaters to disperse and through
natural vegetation absorbing the impacts
of flooding
• Landslides: by 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 block 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 of 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; as well as
conserving traditional medicines and
providing compounds for pharmaceuticals
Adapting to climate change
• Measures are needed to maintain the
resilience of ecosystems under new
climatic conditions—so that they can
continue to supply essential services
• Protected area management will need to
be adapted, to address mitigation and
adaptation needs, in addition to
biodiversity management objectives.
How protected areas
can deliver even more
• Understanding: assess and manage
protected area services and benefits
• Adaptive management: consider climate
impacts and climate solutions in protected
area planning and management
• Integrate: include protected areas into
national and local adaptation strategies
• Resilience: improve ecosystem resilience
particularly when ecosystem services are
under threat
• Restoration and connectivity: maintain
and enhance ecosystem integrity
• Economics: realise the theoretical – goods
and services from an effectively managed
and representative protected area system
could have a value of between US$4,400
and $5,200 billion a year. But protected
area systems are currently underresourced and under-funded
The challenge for protected
areas
• Integrity: ensure that protected areas are
capable of delivering potential services by
ensuring:
– 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
• Land use conversion is already
responsible for around 20% of global
greenhouse gas emissions
…and furthermore…
• According to the IPCC many ecosystems
that are currently sinks for CO2 could
become sources of emissions, with a
temperature increase of just 2.5OC
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
• Natural ecosystems currently sequester
about half of the current GHG emissions.
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. Temperate and boreal forests are
also major sinks. The highest known
carbon storage is in a Eucalyptus forest.
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
Carbon storage
• Peat probably stores more – an estimated
550 Gt is 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
Kinabatangan Nature Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia, bottom inset from Lamington NP, Australia
Carbon storage
• Grasslands may hold more than 10% of
total carbon, but mismanagement and
conversion is causing major losses –
grassland are one of the most un-protected
biomes
• Estimates of soil carbon vary 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 build
carbon stocks
Kinabatangan Nature 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
• Research in the Amazon, Congo Basin and
in boreal forests show that old-growth
forests continue to sequester carbon
• Sequestration from commercial forests
depends largely on whether use is shortterm (e.g. newspapers) or long-term
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 at least
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 in three
key areas
Policy requirements
1. United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC): needs to
recognise protected areas as tools for
mitigation and adaptation to climate
change; and open up key climate change
related funding mechanisms, including
REDD (Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Degradation) and
adaptation funds, to the creation,
enhancement and effective management
of protected area systems
Policy requirements
2. Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD): needs to renew the Programme
of Work on Protected Areas at the 10th
Conference of the Parties (COP10) in
2010 to address more specifically the
role of protected areas in responses to
climate change, in liaison with other CBD
programmes
Policy requirements
3. National and local governments: although
ecosystem-based solutions are not a
panacea and should not replace attempts
to reduce emissions from fossil fuel
combustion, protected area systems
should be incorporated into national
climate change strategies and action
plans, as tools for mitigation by reducing
the loss and degradation of natural
habitats, and adaptation by reducing the
vulnerability and increasing reliance
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
• The full report can be
downloaded at:
cmsdata.iucn.org/download
s/natural_solutions.pdf