To survive climate change, scientists say protected areas need ‘climate-smart’ planning

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 18:19:30 +1000

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/to-survive-climate-change-scientists-say-protected-areas-need-climate-smart-planning/>

"Protected areas such as national parks, nature reserves and Indigenous lands
are the foundation of biodiversity conservation. However, climate change is
threatening their effectiveness in safeguarding wildlife, ecosystem services
and livelihoods.

As many countries work to meet the global target of protecting 30% of the
planet’s lands and waters by 2030 — known as the 30×30 goal, a cornerstone of
the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework — scientists are calling
for the incorporation of “climate-smart” approaches into the planning of new
and existing protected areas.

“While we know that climate change is affecting biodiversity, for example
through distribution range shifts, local extinctions, and community
restructuring, designs of PAs [protected areas] don’t usually explicitly
account for these effects,” says Kristine Buenafe, a doctoral researcher at the
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at the University of
Queensland, Australia, and lead author of a recent review published in Nature
Reviews Biodiversity
.

Buenafe’s paper indicates that conservationists risk protecting areas where
species may no longer live in the future, if they don’t factor in climate
change dynamics."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

Comment via email

Home E-Mail Sponsors Index Search About Us