Protected areas in the Alps need to be adapted according to study
Published: Monday, Jan 22nd 2024, 12:10
Updated At: Tuesday, Jan 23rd 2024, 00:58
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According to a study, the network of protected areas in the Alps needs to be readjusted. This is because climate change is causing many plants to migrate to other areas in order to continue to find suitable conditions.
This also shifts the need for protection, as an international research team under Swiss leadership showed in a study published on Monday in the journal "Nature Ecology & Evolution".
The researchers found the largest gaps in the protection mosaic in Switzerland, as the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) announced on Monday. "According to our simulations, Switzerland should establish the most new areas across the entire altitudinal gradient, as we have the least of them overall compared to our neighbors," WSL ecologist Yohann Chauvier-Mendes was quoted as saying.
The Alps are particularly important for the protection of biodiversity, the researchers emphasized in the study. They are home to 4500 plant species alone, not counting mosses. 400 of these plants live exclusively in the Alps.
Distribution maps
For the study, which was jointly led by WSL and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), the researchers investigated where new protected areas are needed in the Alpine region in addition to the existing ones in order to protect biodiversity in 2050 and 2080.
The researchers created distribution maps for individual plant species - for today, for 2050 and for 2080. They entered existing protected areas into these maps. Using nature conservation planning simulations, they determined where nature conservation areas would best exist.
Switzerland particularly affected
While in Switzerland, according to the analysis, protected areas are lacking across all altitudes, in the other countries it is mainly certain altitudes that require more protected areas. For example, the medium altitudes in Austria and the valleys in France and Germany.
According to the study, only two percent of the existing mosaic of protected areas in the seven Alpine countries is located in Switzerland. However, there are a number of areas in this country that are protected but do not correspond to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) categories I and II examined in the study, as the WSL admitted.
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