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Enhancing climate change mitigation in protected areas - IUCN
| Author: | Risa B. Smith, Anouska Kinahan, Toni Lyn Morelli, Clarissa Samson, Shane Orchard, Megan Critchley, Ben Lucas, Zhilang Zhu, Neal Pastick, Aminur Rahman, Olga Laiza Kupika, Jon Day, Tim Healy, Sara Weiskopf, Maria Isabel Arce-Plata, Jaime Burbano-Girón, Kadambari Devarajan, Shannon Dickey, Elizabeth A. Fulton, Hamed Gholizadeh, Tobi A. Oke, Gretta Pecl, Darren J. Ranco, Annika Keely, Madeleine Ankenman, Thomas P. Mommsen. |
| Language: | |
| Topic: | Climate Change |
| Type: | Strategy and guides |
| Last updated: | 2 October 2025 |
The World Commission on Protected Areas (WPCA) has long recognised the importance
of biodiversity and climate change as dual crises that can only be effectively addressed by
managing for both. It is this nexus that creates the imperative to include climate change
mitigation into PCA management and policy – the subject of this technical report.
Many of the ecosystems most critical to address the biodiversity/climate change nexus are being degraded to the extent that they already, or in the near future, will not be able to provide the ecosystem services of capturing and storing greenhouse gases. This is true for forests, as a result of deforestation and degradation; wetlands, including lakes and peatlands, as a result of drainage, afforestation and fires; grasslands and savannas, as a result of fires, land-use change and overgrazing; and oceans and coasts, as a result of development, land-use change, climate change (including ocean-acidification) and loss of biodiversity. Protected and conserved areas are the most effective solution to addressing the biodiversity/ climate change nexus and ensuring that natural ecosystems can continue their critical role of capturing and storing carbon. Second to protection is restoration, including ensuring the permanence of restored areas through PCA establishment and management. This technical report has been developed to facilitate the incorporation of climate change mitigation into PCA management. I am pleased to present this new document, which will stand as an important addition to several recently released WCPA Technical Reports. It will also serve as background information for the Technical Note, Enhancing climate change mitig
