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40 CLIMATE CHANGE ALBERTAS BIODIVERSITY PARKS AND PROTECTED AREAS Protectedareascontributetospecies resiliencetoclimatechangebylimitingtheadded pressuresofhumandisturbancesuchasland usechangeorhabitatfragmentation.However Albertascurrentnetworkofprotectedareaswas notcreatedinconsiderationoftheimpactsof climatechangeonprovincialbiodiversity. Building on the projections of future ecosystem and species distributions developed through ecological niche modelling pages 14-22 the BMCCA project has examined how climate change could be incorporated into protected areas planning considering the consequences of climate change for the protection of landscape diversity ecosystems and particular species groups. Albertas Protected Areas Network Alberta Parks aims to preserve a network of areas that represents the natural diversity of the province by including all major ecosystems. As the size and distribution of these ecosystems is modified by climate change the proportion of each ecosystem protected will remain largely unchanged indicating that the current approach to parks planning will continue to meet conservation goals. Alberta Parks landscape-level conservation strategy is based on achieving representation of the provinces ecosystems described by 6 Natural Regions and 21 Subregions as a coarse-filter approach to protecting species and ecological processes.35 However as the climate changes the structure and location of ecosystems will change and protected areas may no longer be representative. Richard Schneider and Erin Bayne 2015 tested the extent to which targets based on proportional representation of ecosystems would continue to be met under a changing climate. By developing hypothetical systems of representative reserves for Alberta to achieve ecosystem representation targets i.e. of the area of each ecosystem protected and applying these protected area networks to altered ecosystem distributions projected by bioclimatic envelope models page 14 they found that ecosystem representation would be generally maintained or increased under conditions of climate change. Onepotentialexplanationforthisresultisthat Albertasecosystemsserveasproxiesformore stableandenduringfeaturesofthelandscape suchastopographyandlatitude. Thesefeatures termedlandfacetsprovidethearenasto accommodatethefullrangeofbiodiversitys dynamicresponsestoclimatechange. The current ecosystem-representation approach to planning parks and protected areas in Alberta is therefore a viable approach to developing a climate-ready protected areas system. However it is important to recognize that with this approach the absolute area of an ecosystem that is protected will decline if the absolute area of the ecosystem is reduced. For example a significant proportion of the remaining boreal forest could be protected meeting a proportional target but the absolute area might be small. 35 Scientific Framework for Alberta Parks. Available at httpwww.albertaparks.caalbertaparkscamanagement-land-usebuilding-the-parks-systemscientific-framework.aspx