Mémoire
| Résumé : | Environmental threats from climate change and anthropogenic activities drive the redistribution of marine species threaten ocean health. With growing efforts directed to biodiversity conservation, there is a push to increase the number and scope of reserves, which could increase from about 7% of the ocean now to 30% by 2030. One of the biggest challenges for conservation planning is how best to incorporate climate change into the design of reserves so they are as robust as possible to future environmental changes. The concept of climate-smart protected areas is relatively new, and there is a gap in practical processes for their development. Here, we present a methodology to identify climate-smart areas that have a high capacity of biodiversity retention and low climate exposure. By calculating climate velocity and introducing a novel index of the Relative Climate Exposure, we design a conservation plan for the high-seas of the Indian Ocean. We found that the integration of climate-smart principles in the design of reserves resulted in little increase in cost. This suggests that climate-smart reserves can be designed with little impact on fishing. We also found that conservation plans for three emission scenarios were very similar. We thus designed a climate-smart network of no-regret areas, predicted to maintain stable conditions and protect adaptable species regardless of the climate projection scenario. The development of a systematic and practical methodology such as this one is of high importance as international agencies and NGOs aim to increase the network of marine protected areas. |
