Protected Areas: buffering nature against climate change
On 18-19 June 2007, scientists, non government and government experts were brought together by WWF and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) to find ways to enhance the key role of Australia's National Reserve System in enabling biodiversity, our native plants and wildlife, to adapt to and survive climate change. Symposium participants agreed that in the national climate change arena there is a critical need for recognition that we can, and must, take early and practical steps to enhance and recover the natural resilience to climate change of our ecosystems, plants and animals.
The key policy actions needed are to expand the National Reserve System to meet already agreed targets; to take rapid action on freshwater protected areas; to reduce threatening processes and enhance natural processes across the landscape by integrating off-reserve and on-reserve management through bioregional plans.
