Managing Protected Areas in Central and Eastern Europe Under Climate Change

Abstract

The idea to investigate the impacts of climate change on nature protection sites supported by a remote sensing-based monitoring tool – inspired by Lovejoy and Hannah’s book Climate Change and Biodiversity – was the starting point of the project “Adaptive Management of Climate-Induced Changes of Habitat Diversity in Protected Areas” (HABIT-CHANGE). This first idea was further developed and extended during several meetings with a growing number of interested partners. After two years of preparation, the project proposal was submitted to the European transnational funding programme INTERREG IV B Central Europe and later on approved for a three-year runtime. We chose this funding opportunity since climate change does not stop at national borders and the programme supports science- practice-policy cooperation and implementation, which is especially needed for this topic. Since the Central European area is expected to be especially affected by climate change impacts, it is an appropriate investigation region. Furthermore, by choosing European investigation areas it was possible to evaluate the concept and regulations of the EU Habitats Directive – the most important pillar of European wildlife and nature conservation that forms a network of protected sites across the European Union called Natura 2000.