Idioma principal do documento: Inglês
Idioma secundário do documento: Espanhol

Resumo em Inglês: Forests figure prominently among the most important ecosystems of the Mediterranean; they are very rich in biodiversity and provide a variety of environmental services. Rapid and abrupt land-use changes, due to poor management techniques including overexploitation, development and international market pressures, natural habitats’ degradation and loss, and pollution, are only a few of the main factors impacting upon Mediterranean forests and provoking their degradation. Once climate change is added to these factors, accompanied by extreme weather events like heat waves, torrential rainfall, drought periods and strong wind storms, the resilience and adaptation capacity of forests is drastically reduced. Large scale forest wildfires are among the most direct and immediate consequences of climate change affecting Mediterranean forests. Climate change impacts combined with land use changes and the mismanagement of forests enhance the increase of frequency, intensity and extent of fires. This trend was mainly observed in the northern shores of the Mediterranean region (e.g. Portugal, southern France, Spain, Italy and Greece) during the last two decades. If these conditions are prevalent in the southern areas of the Mediterranean, the consequences regarding the forest ecosystems of the entire region will be dramatic. Tackling climate change is a top priority for the regional governments, research institutions and international organizations working in the region. IUCN, WWF and the conservation community at large are embarking on forest-related climate change work, including among other issues, developing adaptation strategies to manage the uncertainties created by climate change and building ecological and social resilience. The IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation (IUCN-Med), the WWF Mediterranean Programme Office and the WWF Greece Organisation brought together member organisations, partners and experts in a regional workshop entitled “Adaptation to Climate Change in Mediterranean Forest Conservation and Management”, which took place in Athens (Greece) on 14-17 April 2008. During the workshop, participants from regional NGOs, research institutions, governmental and intergovernmental organizations, as well as forest and protected areas managers, analysed needs and opportunities to increase forest and social resilience in the light of global change. The climate change predictions for the region were discussed and climate change adaptation strategies and tools that have proved to be successful in other areas were introduced. The workshop participants prepared a joint statement (The Athens Statement included as an annex in this publication) urging all Mediterranean countries to jointly develop, assess the effectiveness, and fine-tune climate change risk reduction and adaptation strategies and tools. The Statement also expressed the urgent need for north-south cooperation in the region. The workshop was co-sponsored by IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, WWF Mediterranean Programme Office, as well as the A.G. Leventis, I.S. Latsis and Bodosakis Foundations, which fund WWF Greece “Forests for the Future” programme. This publication represents a first step for developing a joint programme of work and strategy on Mediterranean forest adaptation to climate change, including the input of international organizations like FAO, UNDP, GTZ, WWF and IUCN, partners and member organizations, forest managers and users, governments, research institutions and the private sector. This publication has been prepared with the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
Palavras-chave em Inglês: climate change, Mediterranean forests, global warming trends, what can we learn from past climate changes to tackle future changes?, current and forecasted climate change impacts, adaptation to climate change

Tipo: Livro/E-Book

Áreas temáticas: Ciências Biológicas, Ciências e Tecnol. do Ambiente, Ciências da Terra e do Espaço
Ano publicação/produção:  2008

Instituição: IUCN, Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation ; WWF ; FAO

Referência bibliográfica: Regato, Pedro. 2008. Adapting to Global Change: Mediterranean Forests. Malaga, Spain: IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation. ii+254 pp.

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