Browsing by Author "Backes, C."

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    Adaptation to climate change: legal challenges for protected areas
    (Igitur, Utrecht Publishing and Archiving Services, 2009-07-01T00:00:00Z) Cliquet, A.; Backes, C.; Harris, Jim A.; Howsam, Peter
    Climate change will cause further loss of biodiversity. As negative effects are already taking place, adaptive measures are required to protect biodiversity from the effects of climate change. The EU policy on climate change and biodiversity aims at improving a coherent ecological network in order to have more resilient ecosystems and to provide for connectivity outside core areas. The existing legal framework, the Birds and Habitats Directives, can enable adaptive approaches, by establishing and managing the Natura 2000 network and providing for connectivity measures. However, policy and law so far have mainly been aimed at conserving the status quo of habitats and species within core areas. The question is whether a legal requirement to protect certain species in certain places makes sense when species and even ecosystems are migrating due to climate change. Instead, efforts must be increased to protect ecosystem functions, goods and services from the negative effects of climate change, and to facilitate the ecological restoration of new areas. Even more effort is needed for the implementation of connectivity. If existing legislation proves too weak to face these challenges, a new ‘Ecosystem Framework Directive’ might provide the necessary legal impe
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    Response to ‘Protected areas and climate change Reflections from a practitioner's perspective
    (Igitur, Utrecht Publishing and Archiving Services, 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z) Cliquet, A.; Harris, Jim A.; Howsam, P.; Backes, C.
    Cliquet et al. 1 provide a thought-provoking analysis of the challenges posed to the EU's protected areas by climate change. This paper seeks to build on some of the perspectives they brought to what is a highly challenging area of nature conservation law, policy and practice. While there is much to support in their analysis of the relationships between protected areas and climate change, there are two key strands we seek to develop further, based on the RSPB's experience of this area of nature conservation policy and practice: first, is the ecological model for adapting to climate change and second, the legal framework provided by the Birds2 and Habitats3 Directives (the Nature Directives) as it relates to the delivery of such adaptive actions.