Sven Rannow

Managing protected areas under climate change: challenges and priorities.

The implementation of adaptation actions in local conservation management is a new and complex task with multiple facets, influenced by factors differing from site to site. A transdisciplinary perspective is therefore required to identify and implement effective solutions. To address this, the International Conference on Managing Protected Areas under Climate Change brought together international scientists, conservation managers, and decision-makers to discuss current experiences with local adaptation of conservation management. This paper summarizes the main issues for implementing adaptation that emerged from the conference. These include a series of conclusions and recommendations on monitoring, sensitivity assessment, current and future management practices, and legal and policy aspects. A range of spatial and temporal scales must be considered in the implementation of climate-adapted management. The adaptation process must be area-specific and consider the ecosystem and the social and economic conditions within and beyond protected area boundaries. However, a strategic overview is also needed: management at each site should be informed by conservation priorities and likely impacts of climate change at regional or even wider scales. Acting across these levels will be a long and continuous process, requiring coordination with actors outside the “traditional” conservation sector. To achieve this, a range of research, communication, and policy/legal actions is required. We identify a series of important actions that need to be taken at different scales to enable managers of protected sites to adapt successfully to a changing climate.

Do shifting forest limits in south-west Norway keep up with climate change?

Abstract In this paper, high-resolution remote sensing data were used to investigate whether a change in the alpine forest limit is observable on the Hardangervidda plateau in south-west Norway. A comparison of declassified CORONA images from 1965 with modern digital aerial surveys from 2004 provided evidence for a change of forest limits towards higher elevations. However, the observed upslope movement is lower than should be expected considering local climate warming and changes in land use. Projections of climate-induced impacts on the forest limits on Hardangervidda based on equilibrium assumptions do not hold true. There are considerable differences between the reaction of forest cover and changes in tree line. Forest cover in alpine areas might show an extensive time lag in the reaction to climatic change, even though conditions for growth of individual trees may have improved considerably. Consequentially, it should be expected that warming temperatures will not cause an immediate and homogenous advancement of forest cover towards higher elevations.

Climate-adapted conservation: how to identify robust strategies for the management of reindeer in Hardangervidda National Park (Norway)

This paper presents an assessment scheme that should help local conservation management in their adaptation to potential effects of climate change. It can be used for the identification of robust adaptation options at site level. The assessment scheme was applied to the management of Europe’s largest population of wild mountain reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) living in the arctic-alpine plateau of Hardangervidda in south-western Norway. At first, the last four decades (1964–2004) were analysed to identify climate- and non-climate-related driving forces affecting the population. In addition, regional projections of climate change were used to build scenarios for the potential effects on these driving forces until 2050. In the second step, the potential effects of climate change were classified according to the risk they pose to the conservation of reindeer in Hardangervidda. Based on this assessment, no-regret strategies for biodiversity management under changing climate conditions could be identified.

A Methodical Framework for Climate Change-Adapted Management in Protected Areas

Protected areas have to adapt their management to the current and expected future impacts of climate change in order to fulfil their duties. In this chapter we present seven working steps that enable managers in protected areas to develop a Climate Change Adapted Management Plan (CAMP). The steps are embedded in a framework of guiding principles for adaptation. They cover the definition of adaptation objectives, the analysis of existing plans and available data, the assessment of climate change and its impacts and the development of a monitoring concept as well as the identification of suitable adaptation strategies and measures. Stakeholder involvement and awareness raising need to accompany all these efforts. The application of Adaptive Management provides significant benefits in terms of reducing knowledge gaps and improving management effectiveness. The framework for Climate Change Adapted Management Plans was developed in cooperation with protected area managers and tested within the HABIT-CHANGE project. It provides a flexible procedure that can be applied in multiple settings and helps to ensure the success of conservation activities under climate change.

Landscape ecology and climate change adaptation: new perspectives in managing the change

Managing climate change is considered one of the biggest challenges of the decades to come. Understanding its complex interaction with abiotic, biotic, and socioeconomic systems, as well as its effects on land use, landscapes, or even ecosystem services is an essential basis for the development of effective and efficient adaptation strategies. Landscape ecology is considered one of the disciplines that can provide essential insights into these interactions. The analysis of pattern and processes on landscape level must include assessment methods for existing trends as well as modelling of complex reactions in environmental, social, and economic systems. It can provide essential insight in the links between nature and society and derive the scientific and applied input for the adaptation to climate change. Both gradual as well as abrupt changes will affect landscapes and the services they provide for society. These effects are not only limited to direct changes of climate conditions but will also include indirect effects like changes in hydrological cycles or land use related management. Successful adaptation and management, therefore, needs to be geared towards the maintenance of environmental integrity, the protection against unwanted or even hazardous processes, and the exploitation of beneficial opportunities in response to actual or expected change. Knowledge from landscape ecology can help to guide the process of management from a static equilibrium view to a more adaptive actorsand participation-oriented approach. Two symposia were held at the 8.IALE World Congress from 18 to 23 August 2011 in Beijing, China, to strengthen the transfer of knowledge from landscape ecology into adaptation planning. This special Issue is covering selected contributions from the symposia ‘‘Climate Change Adaptation—New perspectives in managing change in landscape ecology’’ and ‘‘Climate optimized land use—a sustainability strategy between adaption to and mitigation of climate change’’. At the symposia, principles for adaptation to and managing of change were discussed, and it was realised that there is still some ground to cover before common general guidelines can be formulated. In the two mentioned symposia, investigations about key aspects of climate change adaptation in landscape systems were presented. They illustrate some of the current research activities in relation to (1) the investigation of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration problems in the context of landscape and land uses, (2) the development of new methods and models to investigate potential impacts, (3) the assessment of climate change impacts including scenario approaches, and (4) the identification of adequate response options for landscape management.

Climate Change Impact Modelling Cascade – Benefits and Limitations for Conservation Management

Model results can serve as a basis for adaptation in conservation management. They can help understanding the impact of climate change, and support the formulation of management measures. However, model results rely strongly on the quality and the resolution of the input data; they contain significant uncertainties and need to be interpreted in the context of the modelling assumptions. The perception of models and their results differs between disciplines as well as between science and practice. Part of this gap derives from the long ‘model cascade’ used for the assessment of climate related impacts on biodiversity. For this ‘model cascade’ model results from Global Climate Models are often used to drive Regional Downscaled Climate Models and are transferred to hydrological models or distribution models of plants and animals. In fact, most assessments of potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity rely on habitat modelling of plants and animals. But, only few decision makers are trained to analyse the different outcomes of climate impact modelling. If modelling is integrated into conservation management it must be based on an evaluation of the need for information in protected areas and an assessment of model use in the management process, so as to guarantee maximum usability.

Natural Heritage at Risk by Climate Change

Even though mitigation of climate change is of utmost importance, managing the impacts of climate change is becoming a growing issue in nature conservation. Its negative effects on biodiversity are adding to the mix of existing problems in protected areas. These effects themselves also interact in various direct and indirect ways on local level. This book sets out to meet the growing need to share knowledge and experiences in the field of biodiversity conservation and climate change in protected areas. It is based on the results of the EU-funded HABIT-CHANGE project. The project focused on the implementation of climate adapted management in protected areas all over Central and Eastern Europe. The experiences of implementing adaptation strategies, as well as the intensive discussions with experts in conservation management, have produced an unrivalled wealth of information about existing problems and solutions on local to regional level. This book gives a comprehensive overview of the project and its results. The general chapters provide information that can be easily transferred to other areas, whilst the case studies illustrate how to tackle climate impacts on the local level. The latter compile valuable experiences and recommendations from adapted management strategies applied in the field. The know-how documented in this volume should help other conservation managers handle the challenges of climate-adapted management. Taking a transdisciplinary perspective, the book aims to attract an audience of experts in the field of conservation management from administration, protected areas, and science.

Conclusions and Recommendations for Adapting Conservation Management in the Face of Climate Change

In HABIT-CHANGE several barriers for the adaptation of conservation management have been identified. Much information and many methods do not fit with planning reality and the decision context at site level. Management authorities as well as land users and stakeholders often lack sufficient expertise and incentives to initiate adaptation activities. At present, learning by doing still plays a fundamental role in the adaptation of conservation management. It is as much a social learning process as it is a science-based procedure. Adaptation to climate change is a cross-sectoral issue. Therefore, stakeholder involvement and guidance of land use-related adaptation activities are of major importance. Available resources and the institutional setting of protected areas have a considerable influence on the capacity and willingness to adapt. Many administrations are not sufficiently equipped to respond to the impacts of climate change. There is an urgent need to build capacity in protected areas to monitor, assess, manage and report the effects of climate change and their interaction with other pressures. More collaboration between science and management will help to develop expertise and identify the most important knowledge gaps.

Managing Protected Areas under Climate Change—Diverse Management for Biodiversity

Change (IMPACT) was held in Dresden (Germany) to meet the growing need for good-practice examples of climateadapted conservation management. More than 120 experts in the field of nature conservation from over 30 countries joined the conference. Participants represented research institutions, national ministries and conservation agencies, NGOs, and managers from protected areas like Nature Parks, Biosphere Reserves, and National Parks. The event provided a platform for dialog between scientists and conservation managers to develop a better understanding of the complex impacts of climate change on biodiversity at the local level and the means to adapt management in protected areas accordingly. This Special Feature covers selected contributions from the conference and tries to wrap up the main results from the management perspective. The need for further research and open questions is also highlighted. The topics covered in this Special Feature are focused on current as well as future management practices, legal aspects, policy recommendations, and supporting adaptation to climate change. Three contributions address current and future management practices: • Ivajnsic and Kaligaric (2014) evaluate three potential adaptation measures to protect coastal wetlands from sea level rise. They use a habitat transition model to compare the effect of buffer zones, the construction of artificial islets, and permanent, artificial sea-barriers on the preservation of two low-lying wetlands at the Adriatic coast. • Ausden (2013) gives a very practical example of climate change adaptation by evaluating the management plans of the nature reserves of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the UK. In this article, the main types of measures which are expected to facilitate