Teresa Ribera highlights the strategic value of research, with a view to the planning of biodiversity conservation policies in the face of the effects of climate change in the coming decades.

It is a study promoted by the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs (MARM) and in which a group of experts and scientists of the highest level of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Extremadura have collaborated.

During the presentation, held on 8 March, the Secretary of State for Climate Change, Teresa Ribera, pointed out that this work will make it possible to feed the decisions and instruments of the Strategic Plan for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity and to delve into the aspects that relate climate change and biodiversity.

The works presented include two atlases, one on impacts and vulnerability to climate change of flora and vegetation and another on the Spanish vertebrate fauna . Both synthesize the main results of the project through a collection of files for each taxon and collect in a set of maps the projections for each species according to the effects of climate change and its adaptation.

In addition, the project synthesizes the possible adaptation measures applicable to the list of flora and fauna taxa contemplated and categorizes them as measures of a legal nature, in situ conservation and ex situ conservation.

The results indicate that of the threatened flora species studied, almost half see their territory of favorable climate drastically reduced. The reduction that significantly affects 20 percent of forest species is especially worrying in the case of some species such as the Spanish fir, the common fir, the holm oak, among others. Forests will resist better the more extensive they are and the less fragmented they are for their potential expansion to other areas of more suitable climate in the future.

In relation to the vertebrate species that exist in Spain, projections indicate a greater exposure to significant contractions of their potential climatic areas and will be more extreme towards the end of the 21st century. Under an extreme climate scenario, 85 percent of amphibians, 67 percent of reptiles and mammals, and 63 percent of birds, could see the area of territory with favorable climatic conditions reduced by more than 30 percent.

In the short term, a collaborative work between the MARM and the Ministry of the Environment, Territorial Planning and Regional Development of Portugal will be published, to assess the impact of climate change on the terrestrial vertebrate fauna of the Iberian Peninsula.

The “Study on the impacts, vulnerability and adaptation of climate change on Spanish biodiversity” is aligned with the recommendations and decisions adopted at the recent United Nations forums in Nagoya and Cancun, in the field of the interaction between climate change and biodiversity conservation.

This project has been completed with a website, in the form of a wiki, in order to open the participation and collaboration of any expert and guarantee the updating and exchange of information, as well as the interpretation of the work and results. To find out more, click here.