Twenty-eighth Report Adapting Institutions to Climate Change Cm ...

Chapter 3
be valued if they attract species that are deemed harmful? These will be important questions
when determining the objectives and assessing the effectiveness of institutional arrangements
for biodiversity.
3.106 These questions are for others to address but it is worth considering whether current measures
of success are likely to be appropriate. Over recent years, nature conservation bodies have spent
considerable time and money assessing the conservation status of their protected areas and taking
action to improve and/or maintain that status. This can involve a level of micro-analysis and
management that is difficult to deliver. More importantly, it implies a static understanding of what
good conservation status is, which is ill-suited to a world in which climate is changing rapidly.
3.107 Conservation bodies are responding accordingly. The Wildlife Trusts’ ‘Living Landscapes’
initiative, for instance, places the protected area network in a broader landscape context, enlarging,
improving and joining protected areas together. 86 The national conservation agencies have
responsibility for conservation at the landscape scale as well as for the protection of designated
sites. Agri-environment funds from Pillar 2 of the Common Agricultural Policy supported by
strategies for catchment sensitive farming will provide resources to integrate biodiversity into
broader land use strategies that build resilience to climate change.
3.108 Natural England has recently reported on pilot studies in four of the 159 ‘Character Areas’
in England (namely the Broads, Shropshire Hills, Cumbria High Fells and Dorset Downs/
Cranbourne Chase) in order to identify local responses required to safeguard the natural
environment as the climate changes, and further studies are in hand. 87 The reports set out how the
vulnerability of these systems can be assessed and the actions required to improve their resilience.
There are a number of common adaptation responses, such as bringing existing habitats into a
healthy status, extending existing habitats and creating new areas, and restoring the structure and
function of river channels and drainage systems. Whilst providing valuable examples of how to
develop adaptation strategies, these reports also illustrate some issues that need to be considered
in future. For example, assessment of risks from a single policy perspective may make securing
cross-functional action on adaptation more difficult.
CONCLUSION
3.109 Governance of adaptation to climate change, both for the areas of the exemplars and beyond, is
clearly complex, involving many institutions and subject to a variety of institutional arrangements.
Some of this complexity is inevitable, given the pervasive nature of adaptation to climate change.
It will be an increasing challenge as our climate continues to change, and this challenge must
be recognised and addressed. Leadership, both within specific institutions and in cross-cutting
institutions such as the governments’ adaptation programmes and the Adaptation Sub-Committee,
will be crucial. In the next chapter, we take this analysis forward and consider how institutions
should address these and other challenges.
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