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Climate change is already having impacts on biodiversity within Europe, with habitats and species needing to change and adapt to rising global temperatures and shifts in bio-climatic zones. Spatial planning represents an important intervention to further European, national and local biodiversity objectives for climate change adaptation. Drawing on case-studies of plans for inland and coastal areas, and involving stakeholder workshops, this paper reports on a trans-national study examining the scope of spatial plans in the Netherlands, England and France in addressing the impact of climate change. It concludes that spatial planning is making provision for biodiversity and dynamic natural processes. However, while good practice in planning for biodiversity under conditions of climate change is developing, systematic use is not being made of available procedures. The paper examines some of the barriers to implementation of this new policy commitment to climate change adaptation. Recommendations are made covering policy development to include climate change impacts upon biodiversity, modified procedures for plan-making and the appraisal of plans and projects. Amongst the specific measures recommended are the climate-proofing of projects and plans through the use of EIA and SEA; the integration of plans through adoption of common objectives and review of time horizons and boundaries; and an ecosystem-based planning approach. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change is an important cause of biodiversity loss. The conservation, sustainable management and use of biodiversity resources are key factors that can be effectively used to minimize the adverse impacts of global climate change. Efforts to understand and address the linkages between global climate change and biodiversity loss are both urgent and timely. Integrating responses related to these two global environmental challenges is especially relevant for small island developing States (SIDS) because the adverse impacts of climate change can impose severe stresses on biodiversity resources that are fragile, vulnerable and already under stress and the people who depend upon them. This paper argues that comprehensive assessments of adverse impacts of global climate change on the biodiversity resources of SIDS, and an improved understanding of relevant climate change related adaptation measures and sustainable energy policies (that are based on the principles of conservation, sustainable management and use of biodiversity resources) will enable SIDS to become more resilient and to develop better response capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the primary causes of biodiversity loss. The immediate causes are apparent: expansion of cattle ranching and agricultural activities; extensive adoption of agroindustrial models that radically simplify the rural landscape and rely on unsustainable use of energy and chemicals; overexploitation of biotic resources such as fisheries, old growth forests, bush meat, and ornamentals; introduction of invasive species; and recently, the first effects of climate change. All the above reduce the integrity, size, and connectivity of habitats; extirpate populations of species and degrade their genetic pool, eventually leading to extinction; threaten the functioning of ecosystems; and, generally speaking, destroy biodiversity. Despite very real and extensive gaps in ecological science, researchers know a lot about many of the above causes. Databases of primary biodiversity data (observations of species) are growing very fast and becoming available through the Internet. The amount of remote sensing data we are obtaining--at unprecedented resolutions--is staggering, far beyond our current capacity to process and understand the data. Because natural scientists know about immediate causes of biodiversity loss, and more importantly, know how to study them, they tend to concentrate on them. The immediate causes of biodiversity destruction act on ecological processes amenable to the methods and theories of the natural scientist, enabling him or her to describe, measure, understand, and, ideally, predict. In short, natural science approaches the problem through the immediate causes. For most biodiversity goods and services, there are no markets in the global and national economies. This problem has been very well documented and it is one of the most powerful root causes of biodiversity loss. In many countries, the efforts of different branches of the government result in environmental policies that, taken together, are uncoordinated and often contradictory.