They are ideal spaces for research, monitoring and dissemination of natural systems and their changes.

Within the framework of the LIFE SHARA project, which aims to promote adaptation to climate change, we have developed a series entitled ‘Sharing Solutions. Climate Change Adaptation Initiatives’ to disseminate good practices in the various sectors of society.

The aim of this series is to Disseminate real experiences that illustrate both the impact and adaptation to climate change in different geographical areas, living environments and productive sectors. These are dissemination and awareness-raising resources that aim to be useful for any entity, institution or person that promotes actions against climate change. Each of the initiatives is presented in  three formats (a video interview-report, a written report and an exhibition panel).

In the narrative on marine reserves, Silvia Revenga, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and Tamia Brito, head of Scientific Monitoring and Dissemination of the Marine Reserves of the Canary Islands, talk to us about these protected areas and how they help us to observe global change.

Marine reserves are protected areas whose main objective is the regeneration of fishing resources and the maintenance of traditional artisanal fishing. Since 1986, the date of creation of the first marine reserve, that of the Island of Tabarca, there have been eleven marine reserves dependent on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA). In each of them there is a part declared as an integral reserve, in which no use other than research is authorized. In the rest of the marine reserve, other uses are regulated, among which artisanal fishing and diving are the main ones.

Marine reserves are ideal spaces for research, monitoring and dissemination of natural systems and their changes. And, by their nature, they are reference spaces to determine whether the observed changes are due to factors such as climate or oceanographic conditions or are directly caused by human activities. They are sentinels of global change and natural laboratories for monitoring the dynamics associated with climate change at sea.

One of the first evidences of this change was found in the Columbretes Islands Marine Reserve, where the historical series of surface temperature promoted by the General Secretariat of Fisheries (MAPA) has shown that the surface temperature has increased by around 1.2ºC in just 20 years and the frequency of abnormally hot summers has quadrupled during the first years of the 21st century. There, thanks to these data and the study of the endemic coral reefs Cladocora caespitosa, the close relationship between mortality episodes of this species and sea warming has been demonstrated.

Apart from increasing water temperatures, climate change is affecting our oceans in different ways: altering patterns in ocean currents, modifying the distribution of species, causing mass die-offs of particularly sensitive organisms and contributing to the progressive acidification of seawater.

In the reserves of the Canary Islands, various impacts of climate change are also being registered, such as the presence of exotic species native to the Caribbean that are settling on the seabed, taking advantage of the change in environmental conditions. This is the case of the communities of Palythoa, a soft coral that is increasingly appearing on La Palma and El Hierro. Or ciguatera, a food poisoning caused by toxins (from marine microorganisms) that accumulate in the food chain and can affect human health.

Another problem that is advancing is the blanquizal, the name given in the Canary Islands to the conversion of rocky bottoms into underwater deserts due to the intensity of browsing by the Diadema africanum urchins, whose populations have been increasing. It is a long-barbed urchin whose presence and impact have been increasing in recent decades due to the combined action of overfishing, environmental deterioration and climate change.

These examples refer us to the key importance that marine reserves have in terms of adaptation to climate change. Firstly, because of their quality as privileged observatories of what is happening in real time, but also because of the fact that their ecosystems and habitats, being better preserved and more diverse, are more resilient to potential changes. For this reason, they can act as a refuge, at least temporarily, for certain particularly sensitive species that, in other areas of the coast, may suffer more intensely from the impacts of global change.

Do you want to know more about our climate change adaptation projects?

Check our website http://www.lifeshara.com/ to access all the information about the project. You can also follow us on Twitter @FBiodiversidad where through the hashtags #LIFESHARA #AdaptacionCC and #CambioClimatico, we keep you informed of all the news and actions.

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