Climate change and its effects on society and nature are becoming more and more visible each day. In order to better understand climate change and its impact, it is important to identify all the variables that matter and their inter-linkages. After the identification process, one can analyze the situation and develop an action plan in order to solve the problems at hand. A New Climate for Conservation Nature, Carbon and Climate Change in British Columbia, is an example of this type of research. In their paper, the researchers discuss how biodiversity (can) adapt to climate change, how we can mitigate climate change, and finally they present key recommendations on how to develop a conservation and climate action strategy plan for British Columbia.
We begin with a brief overview of the biodiversity adaption and mitigation mechanisms as presented in the research paper and continue with a focus on the researcher’s central recommendations.
Part one of the paper discusses the importance of British Columbia’s biodiversity, the current condition of the climate state, its impact on B.C.’s biological diversity (currently observed and expected), future ecosystem, species and genetic responses, and finally resilience and ecological adaptation.
In part two, an overview of the natural capital and the ecosystem services is given. Furthermore, the role of ecosystems in climate change, the changing policy in forest and carbon mitigation in B.C., the emerging research into forest and carbon dynamics and the current forest and carbon mitigation pilots are being discussed.
Based on their study, the researchers have come up with 6 key recommendations. First of all, it is important to make sure that the nature conservation strategies and the climate action strategies will become integrated. In this way, the goals of biodiversity conservation and climate change action can be combined and the fundamental role of ecosystem conservation in both ecological adaptation and mitigation can be recognized. The second recommendation that they put forward is that the core protected areas should be broadened into a climate conservation network, i.e. covering more ground. Besides covering more ground, it is important that new tools, legislation (a full legislative review is advised) and incentives will be introduced. Because of it significance, the researchers focus on one specific incentive as a separate recommendation: provide incentives for Stewardship in every sector. Basically, this means getting everyone involved in every area (protected areas, unprotected areas, First Nations communities, rural regions, …). The fifth recommendation that the researchers put forward is that British Columbia should take the lead on carbon and biodiversity valuation because British Columbia is well positioned at the institutional, legal, social, ecological and economic levels to take advantage of the emerging economy of natural carbon sequestration. Finally, it is recommended that the principle that humans are part of nature and that our survival is intertwined with nature’s survival will be established.
Global climate is changing and there is evidence of global warming. If we want to preserve the biodiversity and the ecosystems of our planet, it is imperative the we take action. We can do this by adapting to the changes we are facing, or by mitigating them. Because of the key characteristics of British Columbia’s land and its unique biodiversity, British Columbia can function as an example and it can play a key role in how we can deal with climate change. For this to happen, society must understand that climate change is everyone’s challenge and that we need to cooperate in order to reach our common goal: take care of nature so that nature will take care of us.
- Source Dr. Jim Pojar. January 2010. A New Climate for Conservation Nature : Carbon and Climate Change in British Columbia. Available at : https://climateactionnetwork.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/NewClimate_report_DSF.pdf [Accessed 03/2021].