Mekong Protected Areas Resilience to Climate Change and key drivers of change to protected areas in the Mekong Delta was presented in the the workshop on Climate Change Impact and Adaptation Study in Vientiane, Lao PDR during May 7 - 11, 2012.

1. Mekong Protected Areas
Resilience to Climate
Change
May 2012

2. Protected area safeguard natural resilience to
climate change in agro-ecological systems
“natural resilience” represents the capacity for species and natural
habitats to maintain viable populations and avoid significant extinction
risk despite climate change.
Bio-diverse systems are naturally resilient. Protected areas:
• maintain viable populations of species;
• conserve blocks of natural habitat large enough to resist large-scale
disturbances and long-term changes
• provide refuges and migration corridors (ie room to move when
conditions change);
Other pressures constraint movement of species, habitat and genes.

3. Protected area are an essential economic development
strategy for the agriculture sector with climate change
PA development footprint
Zones of economic influence

4. Protected area development footprint
Products and services

5. Protected areas, agriculture and livelihoods
Protected areas and sustainable agriculture
 Food security
 Genetic biodiversity of crops and animals (wild species, pollinators, and
crop wild relatives)
 Food and livelihood products (fish, NTFPs, timber etc)
 Safety net for livelihoods and subsistence during extreme events and
seasons.
 Ecosystem services
 Water supply and regulation
 Microclimate maintenance and regulation
 Habitat for crop pollinators and crop pest predators
 Maintenance of soil biodiversity
 Natural buffer for extreme events
• Reducing vulnerability to floods, droughts and other weather-induced
problems;

6. Protected areas in the
Lower Mekong Basin
Key issues for resilience:
Size
Connections
Representativeness

7. LMB PA trends
During the 1990’s:
• The number of PAs increased rapidly
• The total PA coverage as a % of national land area
increased rapidly
And since then
• The increases in nationally established PAs halted
• The number and coverage of locally established and
management PAs continues to increase
• The national natural forest estate is shrinking -
increasing % of remaining natural forest falls within PAs
• Relatively few PAs and little coverage in
floodplains, deltas and aquatic systems (fresh and
marine)

8. Growth in Pas (% of national land area)
Proposed
additions

9. Protected areas in the LMB
Cambodi Lao PDR Thailand Vietnam
a
Pas as a % of land 21% 21% 19% 8%
area
% of national PA 1% 100% 2% 94%
system managed at
local levels
Forests in existing 40% 39% 65% 26%
and proposed PAs
as a % of total forest
area

10. KEY DRIVERS OF CHANGE TO
PROTECTED AREAS
REDUCING NATURAL RESILIENCE

11. Forces reducing natural resilience
Drivers of change are:
• Population pressures (land use activities, primarily livestock
grazing, hunting, logging, subsistence activities and encroachment)
• Development pressures (roads, land
conversion, irrigation, hydropower, logging and fringe agriculture)
Threats to natural resilience in the Mekong region include:
• Land clearing and fragmentation of core habitats and migration corridors;
• Livestock grazing, hunting and logging;
• Changed hydrology and extraction of water
• Invasive weeds and animals;
• Inappropriate fire regimes (intensities, frequencies and timings).

12. Population/agriculture - natural systems use cycle

13. % losses in area of original forest, wetlands and marine
systems Cambodia Lao PDR Thailand Vietnam
Forest 48% 46% 71% 75%
Wetlands 45% 30% 96% 99%
Mangroves 15% NA 84% 37%
Coral 100% NA 77% 96%
reefs*
* Severely threatened by human activities
Only 2-10% of remaining original forests is relatively undisturbed

14. Protected areas and demographics
• Protected areas tend to fall in the least populated and less
accessible locations (with roads and hyrdo-power this is
changing rapidly)
• 80% of protected areas are situated in regions of medium
to high poverty incidence;
• There is increasing migration towards protected areas and
regions of biodiversity wealth;
• Populations within and around PAs are increasing along
with natural resource demand and,
• There is a direct correlation between population density
and the level of community pressure on protected areas.

15. Populatio
n per
province –
Lower
Mekong
Basin
15

16. Forests
and
wetlands
– Lower
Mekong
Basin
16

17. Poverty
incidence
– Lower
Mekong
Basin
17

18. PROTECTED AREAS
IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

22. Protected areas
and sea level rise

23. PAs and sea level rise

24. Potential effects of climate change
Biological effects (ecosystems, species dynamics):
 Increased or decreased growth related to temperature, CO2 and moisture
tolerances of individual species
 Change in ecosystem composition and local food webs
 Changes in biological processes – flowering times, reproductive
cycles, migration routes,
 Shifts in species distribution
 Opportunities for invasive species and pests to flourish
 Extinctions
 Disruption to ecosystem services such as pollination, soil conservation, water
supply and regulation, micro climate

25. TASK 2 APPROACH

26. Task 2 assessment steps
1. Document importance of protected areas to agro-
ecological systems
2. Overlay climate change on LMB protected areas
system
3. Identify protected areas most exposed
4. Assess impact of climate change on PA ecology
(habitat and framework species?)
5. Assess impact on linked agro-ecological systems
6. Propose adaptation options

27. BUFFERING AGAINST
CLIMATE CHANGE

28. Buffering against climate change
• Identify and protect climate refugia;
• Conserve large-scale migration corridors;
• Maintain viable populations
• Reduce threatening processes at the landscape scale;
• Conserve natural processes and connectivity at the landscape
scale; and
– Increase PA size to ensure populations can absorb higher
levels of disturbance; and
– Enhance conservation outside PAs.
• Special interventions to avert extinctions.

29. Protected areas
safeguard
representative
examples of
biodiversity
1. Zone of original
habitat

30. 2. Zones of
remaining
habitat

31. 3. Critical areas