[b] Future needs: Recognising the role of protected areas

Modelling exercises, backed by field observations, provide the basis for assessment of climate change impact on ecosystems. It might be expected that protected areas, which have fixed locations and are often isolated, will be particularly vulnerable to these changes. In fact modelling and field observations show mixed responses. Many individual protected areas are likely to lose habitats and species, but there is evidence that well designed protected area networks may be able to withstand climate change reasonably well (Hole et al, 2009; Araújo et al, 2004). However, as things stand, climate change may have even greater impacts for protected areas than for the wider landscape or seascape as most protected area systems at the moment are not fully representative and furthermore there is a northerly bias to protected areas where more extreme climate change is predicted (Gaston et al, 2009). Thus, if current protected area systems are assessed for their vulnerability to climate change, the survival of many species and habitats are threatened (Hannah et al, 2007). Increasing the resilience of protected area systems and maintaining their essential ecosystem services must be a part of any national strategy for adaptation.

1. 
   Increasing the total area within national protected area systems, with a focus on the ecosystems most valuable to mitigation and adaptation strategies, such as: mature natural forests particularly tropical cloud forests; mangroves and coastal wetland; peat; intact coral reefs; and forests or shrublands on steep slopes.
   
2. 
   Extending existing protected areas through landscape approaches, using sustainable management systems involving natural or semi-natural vegetation types outside protected areas. These can include buffer zones, biological corridors and ecological stepping stones. They are important both to build resilience within the protected area system; to facilitate connectivity for adaptation to climate change (for example through dispersal of species along with changing climate and maintenance of essential refuges where species can persist); and to increase the total amount of natural and semi-natural vegetation under some form of protection. Expansion of protected area systems using all forms of governance, including indigenous and local community conserved areas as well private and co-managed protected areas, also offers an opportunity to involve a wider range of actors in mitigation and adaptation responses.
   
3. 
   Increasing the level of protection within existing protected area systems, for example by shifting management models from those that include some removal of trees (e.g. some IUCN category V approaches) to stricter forms of protection that build up biomass and carbon (e.g. IUCN categories I and II).
   
4. 
   Improving management within existing protected areas, to address problems of illegal logging and conversion, other forms of poaching and detrimental impacts from invasive species, poor fire management etc. Involving local communities in understanding the impacts of climate change on their own livelihoods is also important, including how working with protected area managers e.g. through the establishment of grass banks or wetland restoration, will assist them to avoid the most serious effects of climate change without resorting to increased exploitation of intact ecosystems.
   
5. 
   Focusing some management specifically on mitigation and sequestration needs, thus expanding management and work plans to address climate issues alongside those related to biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, recreation and social values.
   

Forests, and possibly in time other habitats, contained within protected areas offer important potential in terms of meeting the criteria for a “reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation” (REDD) mechanism, currently being developed under the UNFCCC.

If the opportunities to use protected areas as tools for climate mitigation and adaptation are maximised, then managing protected areas under conditions of climate change will require something of a paradigm shift in the way in which protected area agencies do business.

** The potential for carbon release through human activities (e.g. timber poaching) and periodic disturbance factors, particularly fire, along with proposals for ways to mitigate such losses.

** Goods and services offered by the protected area that could help to mitigate climate change impacts, such as amelioration of natural disasters, supply of valuable genetic material, provision of food and water etc.
To achieve this, a number of new tools need to be identified or refined:
** Rapid methods for calculating current and potential carbon sequestration from different vegetation types and ages within a protected area.

** Quick assessment methods to identify and measure the value (social and economic) of wider protected area benefits.

** Additional methodologies to be integrated into national protected area gap analysis to factor in potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation within protected area networks (such refinements may also be needed with some reserve selection software such as MARXAN).

** Modifications to protected area management effectiveness assessment systems to include additionality of stored carbon (the net increase in carbon stored in response, in this case, to either forming a protected area or increasing management effectiveness of an existing protected area) as well as effectiveness of climate adaptation measures – this may involve taking into account responses at a national or even a global level.

** Methods for calculating carbon trade-offs between different management strategies, for example carbon impacts from use of prescribed burning as compared to occasional larger, hotter fires.

** Guidelines for adapting protected area management practices to ensure continuation of their ecological, economic and social functions in light of climate change.

** Guidelines and best practices for accessing funding options for protected areas including climate-related market and fund mechanisms.

** Possibly modifications to existing certification schemes, such as the Forest Stewardship Council, to address issues of climate change within certification.

The evidence presented here suggests that protected areas and the services they provide will be severely affected by the impacts of climate change. It also suggests that the well-established governance and management measures that are involved in protected area systems management can be part of the solution: protected area systems can in many cases be among the most practical, economic and effective means of addressing the challenges of climate change, and should be factored into national and particularly local strategies and investments for both climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Araújo, M. B. Cabeza, M. Thuiller, W. Hannah, L. and Williams, P. H. (2004) Would climate change drive species out of reserves? An assessment of existing reserve-selection methods; Global Change Biology 10: 9, 1618-1626

Britaldo Silveira Soares Filho, Laura Dietzsch, Paulo Moutinho, Alerson Falieri, Hermann Rodrigues, Erika Pinto, Cláudio C. Maretti, Karen Suassuna, Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza and Fernando Vasconcelos de Araújo

In the worst case scenario, assuming that past trends of agricultural expansion and road development persist, 40 per cent of the remaining Amazon forests could be eliminated by 2050. The quantity of carbon to be released into the atmosphere during this period could reach 32±8 billion tons; which is almost equivalent to three years of global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions at 2000 levels. In addition to biodiversity losses, deforestation in the Amazon could lead to major changes in the regional climate regime, such as substantial decrease in rainfall (Sampaio et al, 2007) and the consequent increase in forest fire frequency, which in turn contributes to larger emissions of greenhouse gas (Nepstad et al, 1999, Nepstad et al, 2008).

The most ambitious conservation programme related to this expansion of protected areas is the Amazon Region Protected Areas Programme (ARPA), which was created by the Brazilian Government in 2003. Over a 10-year period (2003–2013), ARPA intends to protect 500,000 km² of natural ecosystems. This expansion of the protected areas system has played an important role in biodiversity and cultural conservation in the Amazon. But what role has it played in terms of protecting carbon stocks?

The results show that protected areas inhibit deforestation. Accumulated deforestation within the areas analyzed was relatively low (1.53 per cent of the total protected area of the Brazilian Amazon). Overall the effectiveness in reducing deforestation is similar in sustainable use areas, strict conservation areas and indigenous people’s lands, whilst military areas have much lower values of relative effectiveness. Protected areas also show an inhibitory effect on reducing deforestation in their surroundings. Notably, this inhibitory effect has been augmenting over time, especially is the case of sustainable use areas supported by the ARPA Programme.