The climate change challenge for A Rocha

Burnt Strawberry Tree woodland in Serra de Monique

The A Rocha Portugal team are studying the extent to which plant communities recover from fires: these Strawberry Trees on Serra de Monchique were burned in 2003.

Will Simonson, A Rocha’s Scientific Director, describes the impact which climate change is having on A Rocha’s programmes, particularly in research and conservation.

The prospect is an alarming one: climate, one of the fundamental bases of an ecosystem, starts undergoing rapid change, whole biological communities struggle to adapt and start unravelling, species lose what they need for survival. How can A Rocha and other conservation organisations respond? ‘Conservation’ itself hardly seems an adequate concept in the face of ecosystems on the move. Can we stop half of the passengers being lost on the journey?

In response to this change and uncertainty we have an added impetus and urgency to do more of our core work, and to do it better. Protecting key wildlife areas and focusing in on species under particular threat these are things that can only help increase survivorship of species and their habitats. It is generally agreed amongst conservationists that bigger living spaces will give plants and animals more resilience in the face of change. This is something we should be working for at a site level, encouraging the protection and enhancement of core sites such as the Aammiq Wetland and the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. However, through advocacy we also need to work towards better quality habitat in the countryside in between, providing adequate conditions for species on the move.

Another core A Rocha approach reaching the hearts and minds of people so that they become a bigger community of those concerned and actively involved in nature protection has also become more important. In the Vallee des Baux of southern France, A Rocha is using the Roller as a flagship species to teach landowners and farmers about the valuable Mediterranean ecosystems which support this iconic bird and a whole host of other important wildlife. More than that, the landowners have been given the knowledge and specific ideas and opportunities to become involved practically. This can involve helping the Rollers by making sure that there are enough feeding perches, and reversing the effects of intensive modern farming by restoring meadows and White Poplar gallery forests.

Surveillance of the movements and life cycle stages of plants and animals has always been something that A Rocha can do well, through its year-round running of field study centres and teams at specific sites. Such activity has now gained additional significance as these natural calendars start changing because of climate change. An opportunity now exists for A Rocha to contribute to the growing phenological networks which are tracking these changes.

Climate change scientists are predicting an increasing number of forest fires in Europe, due to hotter and drier summers. This fire raged near Alcobaça, Portugal, in August 2006

Forest fires in Serra dos Candeeiros Natural Park, August 2006

Climate change scientists are predicting an increasing number of forest fires in Europe, due to hotter and drier summers. This fire raged near Alcobaça, Portugal, in August 2006.

Research into the effects of climate change needs to become a stronger theme in organisations like A Rocha we have to understand better where climate change is taking us, how species are responding, and how we can help them. The research on the effects of sea warming on the survival of European Storm-petrels (A Rocha International News April 2004, October 2005) is one example that is developing insights of relevance to seabirds generally. Meanwhile, in Portugal, the prediction of warmer and drier years raises the probability of more frequent and extensive forest fires, experience of which is all too current. This is shaping the direction of A Rocha’s research in the Serra de Monchique, an area mostly razed to the ground in 2003. Our question has become, how will the plant communities respond to more fire? Dr Ruth Mitchell of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology joined the A Rocha team in summer 2005 to help monitor the recovery of vegetation in plots established before the fires. We gained evidence that the rarer habitats are less resilient to fire (are recovering more slowly), also that the mountain heathlands start losing their indicator heath species in areas burned more frequently in the last 15 years. Taking this research a step further, we aim to be in a position to state what a less fire-prone, more biodiverse mountain landscape would look like, and how it can be achieved.

Will Simonson and François Tron presented the work on post-fire vegetation recovery in Portugal and on the Roller in France at the 1st European Congress of Conservation Biology in August in Eger, Hungary.