Environmental Change Institute

Climate change is set to bring warmer and drier summers, wetter winters and more extreme weather events. The performance of the buildings we design and inhabit today will be directly affected by these changes. Anyone involved in designing and refurbishing buildings and their services will need to understand the future climates in order to take up the challenge of ensuring those buildings continue to be comfortable and energy efficient throughout their lifespan.

CIBSE in collaboration with the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) have undertaken a KTP project to 1) communicate the UKCP09 climate projections in a concise and construction specific form, and 2) aid weather data selection for analysing building design proposals.

The UK’s most recent climate projections (UKCP09) are highly complex and not sector specific. This project has simplified and tailored the projections to construction, specifically producing unique graphs that show the probability of future values of some of the most important weather variables for buildings.
The KTP project is producing guidance on the selection of weather data based on examples that focus on key design appraisals such as overheating or energy calculation. The selection of time periods, emissions scenarios, probability levels and locations are discussed, and sources of further guidance on climate projections, impacts and adaptation solutions noted.
It is hoped that building services engineers, along with other members of the construction industry and clients will benefit from the insight into this complex subject, in order to design buildings more resilient to future climate change. The paper set to be presented at the symposium is an overview of the KTP project and samples of the guidance available for engineers. Finally the question posed to the symposium is ‘Is this guidance of benefit, and do you require any additional material?’

Climate change is set to bring warmer and drier summers, wetter winters and more extreme weather events. The performance of the buildings we design and inhabit today will be directly affected by these changes. Anyone involved in designing and refurbishing buildings and their services will need to understand the future climates in order to take up the challenge of ensuring those buildings continue to be comfortable and energy efficient throughout their lifespan.

CIBSE in collaboration with the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) have undertaken a KTP project to 1) communicate the UKCP09 climate projections in a concise and construction specific form, and 2) aid weather data selection for analysing building design proposals.

The UK’s most recent climate projections (UKCP09) are highly complex and not sector specific. This project has simplified and tailored the projections to construction, specifically producing unique graphs that show the probability of future values of some of the most important weather variables for buildings.
The KTP project is producing guidance on the selection of weather data based on examples that focus on key design appraisals such as overheating or energy calculation. The selection of time periods, emissions scenarios, probability levels and locations are discussed, and sources of further guidance on climate projections, impacts and adaptation solutions noted.
It is hoped that building services engineers, along with other members of the construction industry and clients will benefit from the insight into this complex subject, in order to design buildings more resilient to future climate change. The paper set to be presented at the symposium is an overview of the KTP project and samples of the guidance available for engineers. Finally the question posed to the symposium is ‘Is this guidance of benefit, and do you require any additional material?’

Shifting baseline syndrome (SBS) is often referred to as a key issue for conservation, yet there is little evidence for its existence. The presence of SBS could influence the validity of participatory monitoring, local ecological knowledge, community based conservation, and conservation education. We outline two forms of SBS: (1) generational amnesia, where knowledge extinction occurs because younger generations are not aware of past biological conditions and (2) personal amnesia, where knowledge extinction occurs as individuals forget their own experience. Two conditions are essential to the identification of SBS: (1) biological change must be present in the system and (2) any perceived changes must be consistent with the biological data. If age or experiencerelated differences in perception are then found, generational amnesia may be occurring. Alternately, if individuals believe current conditions also occurred in the past, personal amnesia may be occurring. Previous studies have not fully addressed these conditions, and hence cannot provide indisputable evidence for the existence of SBS. We present three case studies to examine these issues, which demonstrate both forms of SBS. Shifting baseline syndrome is no longer a cautionary tale, but instead is a real problem for those using human perceptions of change to inform conservation policy-making or management.

Bushmeat hunting is an activity integral to rural forest communities that provides a high propor-† de alcohol y cigarros, y la cantidad y proporción del ingreso utilizado para estas compras incrementó sustancialmente con incrementos en la captura individual. En contraste, la mayoría de las compras realizadas por mujeres fueron alimentos, pero sus compras disminuyeron proporcionalmente al incremento de captura por cacería en la familia. Esto sugiere que la disponibilidad de carne de monte como una fuente de alimento disminuye el gasto en alimento, mientras que el ingreso por cacería puede ser gastado parcialmente en productos que no contribuyen significativamente a la seguridad alimentaria familiar. Las intervenciones de conservación orientadas a reducir el comercio de carne de monte necesitan considerar los cambios probables en el gasto individual que se pueden generar, así como los efectos secundarios sobre las economías familiares.

Analyses of leopard Panthera pardus prey choice reveal a strong preference for species weighing 10-40 kg. In the Congo Basin rainforests, species within this weight range are also targeted by bushmeat hunters, potentially leading to exploitative competition between leopards and hunters. We investigated leopard prey choice along a gradient of human disturbance, hypothesizing that leopards will exploit smaller prey where competition is strong, possibly resulting in reduced leopard densities at highly hunted sites. We determined leopard diet by means of scat analysis at four rainforest sites in central Gabon, which varied according to their distance from human settlements. Camera trap data collected at each of the four study sites revealed that human hunting intensity increased with proximity to settlements, while the abundance of potential leopard prey species decreased. We found no evidence of leopards at the site nearest to settlements. At the remaining sites, the number of scats collected, mean leopard prey weight and the proportion of large prey (420 kg) in leopard diet increased with distance from settlements. Camera trap data demonstrated that leopard population density increased with distance from settlements, from 2.7 AE 0.94 leopards/100 km 2 to 12.1 AE 5.11 leopards/100 km 2 . Our results document an increasing use of smaller prey species and a decrease in leopard density in proximity to settlements, supporting our hypothesis. Comparison of leopard diet with hunter return data revealed a high dietary niche overlap between leopards and hunters at sites situated at similar distances from settlements. Our results suggest that bushmeat hunting may precipitate the decline in leopard numbers through exploitative competition and that intensively hunted areas are unlikely to support resident leopard populations. Conserving the leopard in the Congo Basin will rely on effective protected areas and alternative land management strategies that promote regulated human hunting of leopard prey.

Peterson. 2007. Are large-scale distributional shifts of the Blue-winged Macaw (Primolius maracana) related to climate change? Journal of Biogeography 34: 816-827. Cresswell, W., and R. McCleery. 2003. How great tits maintain synchronization of their hatch date with food supply in response to longterm variability in temperature. Journal of Animal Ecology 72: 356-366. Crozier, L. 2003. Winter warming facilitates range expansion: cold tolerance of the butterfly Atalopedes campestris. Oecologia 135: 648-656. Dobson, A., A. Jolly, and D. Rubenstein. 1989. The Greenhouse Effect and biological diversity. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 4: 64-68. Grinnell, J. 1917. Field tests of theories concerning distributional control.

The Convention on Biological Diversity has established a global target for the protection of 10% of each of the world's ecological regions by 2010. This report uses the WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World and the 2009 version of the World Database of Protected Areas to analyse progress towards achieving this politically established conservation goal across the world. Overall, five of the seven realms (excluding Antarctica), and 11 of the 14 biomes have over 10% protected area coverage. However, only 54% of the WWF terrestrial ecoregions reach the 10% protected area coverage target. Nations are still working to develop their protected area networks and it is likely that further ecoregions will reach the 10% protected area coverage target for terrestrial ecological regions by 2010. Although protection of the Global 200 priority ecoregions is

Cercopithecus solatus is a recently discovered monkey endemic to Gabon, present in parts of the Lopé National Park and the Forêt des Abeilles in the center of the country. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (2010) due to its restricted extent of occurrence and continuing decline in population caused by high hunting pressure. All known field observations of this species are compiled here. Data collected since 1999 show that C. solatus occurs further to the south, east, and west than was previously known, and that its extent of occurrence almost certainly includes three national parks, rather than one.

More than 25% of natural World Heritage (WH) sites worldwide are estimated to be under pressure from existing or future mining and energy activities UNESCO 2009). However, that 'pressure' has yet to be quantitatively defined and assessed for many regions of the world. We conducted a GIS-based analysis of overlap and proximity between natural WH sites and areas allocated to oil and gas concessions as well as pipelines and oil wells for all of sub-Saharan Africa. We found that oil and gas concessions were located within 27% of the WH sites, though no currently active oil wells were operating directly within the WH sites. A proximity-based assessment of oil and gas concessions within 5 km of WH site boundaries included only one additional WH site, suggesting that sites susceptible to indirect impacts from oil and gas development are likely to be those already overlapped by concessions. Our findings indicate that activity from oil and gas development in sub-Saharan WH sites has to date been limited; however, future pressure cannot be ruled out, due to continued presence of concessions within more than one quarter of the network, and projected expansion of oil and gas exploration within the region. Our results may be used to inform the inclusion of new sites into the WH network.

We report on land management and protected area management effectiveness in the tiger range. Wild tigers Panthera tigris are found in 13 countries, with habitat that is also important for ecosystem services, biodiversity and a number of other threatened species. Timber production, mineral mining, oil and gas concessions and protected areas are common land-use designations in tiger habitat. Twenty-one per cent of the current tiger range is under some form of protection, while 9% is designated as ‘strictly protected,’ in IUCN categories I or II. Fifteen per cent of the tiger range is under oil and gas concession. These concessions also overlap 152 protected areas, 55 of which are categorized as strictly protected. Management effectiveness tracking tool responses suggest that the majority of protected areas in the tiger range are inadequately managed to meet their objectives, and the most commonly reported management challenges are minimal enforcement and budgets. We observe that even strictly protected areas are subject to a variety of pressures, particularly resource extraction. Results imply that the establishment and enforcement of effective protected areas in each tiger landscape, sufficient to protect and grow breeding tiger populations, could help change current trends. These areas should be free from incompatible land uses, and should be adequately resourced to meet management, enforcement and monitoring challenges. Weaknesses in protected area management identified here have implications for species and ecosystem services that share the same geography as tigers. In addition, results suggest that similar issues may exist for threatened species and protected areas in other geographies as well.

Accurate monitoring of the effectiveness of protected areas (PAs) in decreasing deforestation is increasingly important given the vital role of forest protection in climate change mitigation. Recent studies on PA effectiveness have used remote-sensing imagery to compare deforestation rates within PAs to surrounding areas. However, remote-sensing data used in isolation provides limited information on the factors contributing to effectiveness. We used landscape-modelling techniques to estimate the effectiveness of ten PAs in Madre de Dios, Peru. Factors influencing PA effectiveness were investigated using in situ key-informant interviews. Although all of the PAs studied had positive effectiveness scores, those with the highest scores were ecotourism and conservation concessions, where monitoring and surveillance activities and good relations with surrounding communities were reported as possible factors in decreasing deforestation rates. Native community areas had the lowest scores, with deforestation mainly driven by internal resource use and population growth. Weak local governance and immigration were identified as underlying factors decreasing the effectiveness of protection, whereas good relations with surrounding communities and monitoring activity increased effectiveness. The results highlight the need to combine remote sensing with in situ information on PA management because identification of drivers and deterrents of deforestation is vital for improving the effectiveness of protection.

“REDD+” is a mechanism created under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for Reducing {carbon} Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation and forest enhancement. In addition, REDD+ “safeguards” are intended to protect non-carbon forest values. While REDD+ countries are formally requested to provide information on safeguards, there is as yet no agreement on the relative priority of carbon versus non-carbon values, and the appropriate level of safeguard standardization.This, we argue, has allowed REDD+ to function as a “boundary object” spanning disparate priorities. Meanwhile, the contestation of these priorities has been displaced from intergovernmental processes to the various organizations involved in operationalizing REDD+ activities. This article applies a set of organizational, substantive and conceptual typologies to compare differences in the balance of actors, interests and ideas across these organizations. It finds that multi-lateral funding programs have drawn heavily on existing safeguards for international aid, while private certification schemes have specialized in different niche priorities at the project level. In regards to the substance of safeguard requirements, the involvement of donors and investors appears correlated with a stronger emphasis on carbon and risk mitigation while greater NGO involvement and the decoupling of safeguards design from REDD+ funding appear correlated with greater emphasis on social rights and benefits.These findings have several critical implications for future REDD+ activities. Firstly, the choice of organizations involved in defining, funding and verifying safeguard activities, and the balance of actors in their governing structures, are likely to influence the relative emphasis on non-carbon values. Secondly, a diversity of approaches to disbursing REDD+ incentives may be necessary to maintain widespread support for REDD+. Thirdly, it remains to be seen whether REDD+ will remain a boundary object if it transitions to a national-level, performance based system where the design and enforcement of safeguards competes directly with financial compensation for measurable emissions reductions.► Safeguards enable REDD+ to gain support as a “boundary object” meaning different things to different actors. ► These different meanings are reflected in different approaches to safeguards. ► Donor involvement is correlated with an emphasis on carbon and managing risk, while NGOs emphasize non-carbon values. ► The decoupling of safeguards from funding requirements appears correlated with a greater emphasis on non-carbon values. ► The involvement of a diversity of organizations in operationalizing REDD+ may be necessary to maintain widespread support.