Through our work, most of us are aware of the requirements to reduce our (UK-wide) emissions by 2050 and we have an important role in both mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and helping our landscapes adapt to climate change. This article focuses on how we, the Protected Landscapes Partnership (PLP) - a collaboration between the National Landscapes Association, National Parks England, National Trails UK and Natural England – are thinking about and delivering landscape-scale climate adaptation.  

As Climate Change Co-ordinator for the National Landscapes Association, I work with colleagues at the Landscape Observatory and across the protected landscapes network to develop methodologies that integrate explicit consideration of climate change impacts into all our work. Specifically, the Landscape Observatory is working on climate-smart adaptive management approaches that can be used by all protected landscapes. Wildlife, cultural heritage features, farming businesses and landscape character are all vulnerable to climate and likely to change as the world’s average temperature increases. For example, the changes we are likely to see in agriculture - particularly crops - are less wheat and more vineyards, and even orange groves in the south of the country 1. Most of the protected landscapes have more than 50% of land under agriculture (pasture and arable), and this shift in crops will significantly change their character. 
 

We in the UK are already seeing, feeling and paying for the impacts of climate change. The damage costs we are already paying, in terms of repairs to roads and buildings, clean up, access, lack of power and water and damage to crops from extreme events like storms and floods, are set to get worse. The Climate Change Committee has recommended that we plan for “At least 2C by 2050 and consideration for 4C by 2100” 2

What this means is that, without significant reductions in emissions, there will be considerably more damage costs in the future as we are already on track to pass what is widely regarded as the ‘safe’ atmospheric warming level of 1.5oC in the next few years.

The implications of this are that planning for adaptation will not only become essential to prevent loss of life, ecosystem function, amenity, crops, access and livelihoods such as farming, but will also become essential to create climate resilience (for businesses), and to invest in prevention now to reduce costs.  

These are big, complex and strategic ideas to plan for and will require fundamental changes to the way we work, so where do we start in a protected landscape context?

There is a recognition by Government of the risks posed by climate change, demonstrated by the mandatory requirement for all protected landscapes in England to have climate adaptation plans by 2028. But sadly, this is not currently backed up by sufficient resources to deliver the plans. 

As part of my role, I am supporting National Landscape teams to begin using, climate-smart adaptive management approaches by providing expert advice and guidance. I have created a template that provides a skeleton outline of what is needed in the plan. It includes a strategic summary, which is where this big-picture thinking comes in (see the diagram below for where this fits into the plans). This summary needs to explain what the risks and opportunities are from the effects of climate change on the identified components of natural beauty. 
 

There will be positive and negative consequences of climate change and many uncertainties remain. The big thinking comes in because we will need to make difficult choices and change our risk appetite regarding uncertainties. These choices may appear to undo the past work to restore, recover or manage features to conditions based on historical ‘steady state’ environmental variables, like seasonal rainfall. By ‘steady state’ I mean that we have always assumed that our rainfall will remain the same but, with climate change, variables like rainfall will not be the same as they were in the past.

The truth is that a ‘restore and preserve’ approach to conservation will become increasingly untenable as the world warms. Locally, we are likely to lose key species, gain new ones and see changes in habitat types and heritage because they will no longer be viable in specific regions. This will change how ecosystems function, but all is not lost. What we need to do in this situation is identify pockets that can hold out the longest (shaded, cooler areas or wetter valley bottoms) and conserve these refuges as jumping off points that enable the species or habitat to establish elsewhere, in new resilient ecosystems.  

This kind of thinking may go against conventional narratives of ‘but we’ve always had X species here’ and that is what defines the area. We may need to shift this thinking from the static condition of ‘holding the line’ to more flexible and radical thinking beyond individual reserves or areas, to species climatic ranges since ‘holding the line’ will not be possible with the level of climate change expected.  

What I am aiming to do is to get ‘climate thinking’ into every nature recovery project and vice versa, because nature and climate are two sides of the same coin and support each other. Nature recovery projects, such as peatland restoration or woodland creation, affect greenhouse gas emissions and nature-based solutions, such as leaky dams, can deal with the impacts of climate change by reducing flooding.  

The template also suggests the use of this flexible concept – where the valued characteristics, or more properly, the features which contribute to them – are each considered in turn and allocated one of three management strategy categories: 

• Resist maintain current conditions
• Accept allow natural adaptation to new states 
• Direct guide the system towards a specific, desired alternative state

The RAD framework (Resist-Accept-Direct) is a part of a climate-smart adaptive management approach for managing ecosystems facing significant climate change. This approach is part of my co-development work with protected landscape teams through the Landscape Observatory.  It helps resource managers decide how to respond to transformation by providing a structured way to consider if preserving the past, allowing change, or steering toward a different future condition is achievable and desirable. In this way, RAD can be used as a portfolio of strategies across protected landscapes to coordinate action in over 25% of the UK.

The RAD category for each feature can be published in the strategic summary for the climate adaptation plans and reviewed every five years as part of the Management Plan cycle. In this way, actions and interventions can be adjusted in the light of condition monitoring, new science, funding, resources and policies. The strategic summary is supported with the evidence information (provided in the body of the report or annexes) such as the future projections for climate parameters for the area, the modelled species ranges for different climate scenarios, the risk assessment and the status and availability of stakeholder information on climate planning. This evidence base provides the justification for action and the business case and should also be updated every five years within the Management Plan cycle.
 

The final piece of the current puzzle is for me to develop Delivery Plan guidance, which will be a document that supports including climate activities within the existing annual business planning cycle and should be co-created with partners. The Delivery Plan guidance aims to enable protected landscapes to link the strands of work /projects with individual work plans (job descriptions and daily tasks) and reporting requirements (quarterly, annual, monitoring and evaluation). This will be developed within my work plan for the next quarter.

The three sections of the Climate Change Plan and how they fit into existing policy, targets and management cycles are shown in the diagram.  

If you would like to chat with me about any of the ideas I have raised, or to learn more about climate smart adaptive management work from the Landscape Observatory, please get in touch.  

You can also register on the Landscape Observatory website for news of the programme of AI mapping work, landscape-scale condition monitoring and climate-smart adaptive management development over the next few years. 

1. UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology: Scientists predict what will be top crops by 2080 due to climate change 
2. Climate Change Committee: CCC Letter to Minister Hardy - advice on the UK's adaptation objectives