Assessing climate change-robustness of protected area management plans—The case of Germany

Abstract

Protected areas are arguably the most important instrument of biodiversity conservation. To keep them fit under climate change, their management needs to be adapted to address related direct and indirect changes. In our study we focus on the adaptation of conservation management planning, evaluating management plans of 60 protected areas throughout Germany with regard to their climate change-robustness. First, climate change-robust conservation management was defined using 11 principles and 44 criteria, which followed an approach similar to sustainability standards. We then evaluated the performance of individual management plans concerning the climate change-robustness framework. We found that climate change-robustness of protected areas hardly exceeded 50 percent of the potential performance, with most plans ranking in the lower quarter. Most Natura 2000 protected areas, established under conservation legislation of the European Union, belong to the sites with especially poor performance, with lower values in smaller areas. In general, the individual principles showed very different rates of accordance with our principles, but similarly low intensity. Principles with generally higher performance values included holistic knowledge management, public accountability and acceptance as well as systemic and strategic coherence. Deficiencies were connected to dealing with the future and uncertainty. Lastly, we recommended the presented principles and criteria as essential guideposts that can be used as a checklist for working towards more climate change-robust planning.

Assessing the exposure of forest habitat types to projected climate change—Implications for Bavarian protected areas

“…With assisted migration, the barriers imposed by landscape fragmentation and limited dispersal abilities of tree species could be reduced. The improvement of the management of Natura 2000 sites plays another important role in safeguarding the priority habitat types (Geyer, Kreft, Jeltsch, & Ibisch, ). Conservation measures for the here considered forest habitat types include, for example, the restoration of natural hydrological conditions and the removal of exotic plants (Hughes, del Tánago, & Mountford, ; Stiftung Naturschutzfonds Brandenburg, n.d.).…”

“…With assisted migration, the barriers imposed by landscape fragmentation and limited dispersal abilities of tree species could be reduced. The improvement of the management of Natura 2000 sites plays another important role in safeguarding the priority habitat types (Geyer, Kreft, Jeltsch, & Ibisch, 2017).…”

A Global Assessment of Climate Change Adaptation in Marine Protected Area Management Plans

“…In climate-robust MPA management, climate change adaptation is incorporated in several structured steps (Geyer et al, 2017;Tittensor et al, 2019;Wilson et al, 2020 and references therein). First, MPA planners or managers must assess the vulnerability of ecological, physical, and sociological features of the MPA to climate change impacts.…”

“…A more informative approach to evaluating the incorporation of climate change adaptation in management is to look for evidence directly in MPA management plans, as has been done in British Columbia, Canada (Heck et al, 2012) and Germany (Geyer et al, 2017). Here, we expanded upon these works by compiling English-language MPA management plans from across the globe and conducting a text analysis of An ecological indicator could be abundance, percent cover, or recruitment of at-risk species or communities/species of value; a physical indicator could be water quality or sea level; and a sociological indicator could be park visitor traffic.…”

Building the Climate Change Resilience of Mongolia’s Blue Pearl:

“…To develop such actions, an understanding of the site-specific impacts of climate change is needed. There is a large global literature on the impacts of climate change on protected areas (e.g., Geyer et al 2017;Elsen et al 2020), but few site-specific assessments have been conducted for protected areas in Asia. Such assessments are urgently needed to help plan for climate change.…”