Report: SANParks Global Environmental Change Project: Iniation workshop Report

Climate change has significant implications for biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and consequently human well-being. It is also recognized that climate change impacts do not occur in isolation, and that it is the interaction between climate change and other key drivers of environmental change that are altering the world as we know it. The six main direct drivers of Global Environmental Change (GEC) are climate change, habitat change, invasive alien species, disease, pollution, and unsustainable harvesting.

What are the implications of global environmental change for protected areas, and more specifically for SANParks? This question has been raised and recognized within SANParks at various levels, evidenced for example by the fact that the completion of a climate change assessment and response strategy is a milestone in SANParks’ 2009- 2010 Business Plan.

In November 2009, Conservation Services Division conducted a preliminary 2-day Assessment of Global Environmental Change in South African National Parks. The objectives of the GEC Workshop were to (i) improve the shared rationality andunderstanding on global environmental change within CSD, (ii) initiate a research agenda for global change in parks, and (iii) to deliver a preliminary report on global environmental change in parks with suggestions on a way forward. This document provides a summary of the outcome and outlines recommendations for a way forward and lead to the initiation of a more thorough quantiative assessment.