News
Policy Event "Climate Change and its Impact on the Management of Protected Areas in Europe"
5 March 2013 in Brussels/Belgium
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time and adaptation to it is of highest priority.
Changing climate and land use are threatening the world's most valuable conservation sites, such as national parks and biosphere reserves. The INTERREG IVB project "HABIT-CHANGE – Adaptive Management of Climate-induced Changes of Habitat Diversity in Protected Areas " is developing adaptation strategies for large protected areas and makes conservation management fit for the challenges of a changing climate in Europe’s hotspots of biodiversity. HABIT-CHANGE has organised this policy event to present its final results.
The event was focused on the questions:
- How can Europe’s protected areas like National Parks, Biosphere Reserves and Natura 2000 Sites be made climate-proof?
- How can European policies and programmes support the adaptation process in Europe’s protected areas?
During an interesting and diverse programme (PDF 1,8 MB) of two hours, answers to these questions were presented by:
- Karl Falkenberg, Director General for Environment, European Commission
- Dr. Sven Rannow, Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Germany (Presentation PDF 3,46 MB)
- Dr. Andrej Sovinc, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Regional Vice-Chair (Europe), Slovenia (Presentation 1,8 MB)
- Mateusz Grygoruk, Biebrza National Park, Poland (Presentation PDF 2,86 MB)
- Dr. Christian Wilke, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany (Presentation PDF 1 MB)
- Karin Zaunberger, Policy officer, DG Environment, European Commission
A short summary of the event is available here
POLICY BRIEF – BACKGROUND PAPER
Changing Habits in Habitat Conservation - Enhancing Adaptive Capacity of the Natura 2000 Network under Climate Change
(Download PDF 664 kB)