Abstract
For more than a decade, climate change has been identified as an important emerging issue for protected areas. Utilising outputs from two equilibrium global vegetation models (GVMs) forced with six climate‐change scenarios, this study assessed potential terrestrial biome‐type change in Canada's protected area network (2,979 national parks, national wildlife areas, migratory bird sanctuaries, Ramsar sites, ecological reserves, wilderness wildlife areas and provincial parks). Vegetation‐modelling results project that 37–48 percent of Canada's protected areas could experience a change in terrestrial biome type under doubled atmospheric carbon‐dioxide conditions. Park and protected area planning in Canada have traditionally been founded upon enduring‐feature analysis and ecoregion representation frameworks. These conservation‐planning frameworks are based on climatic and biogeographic stability; assumptions that what these modelling results for Canada's protected areas and other vegetation‐modelling studies indicate are untenable in an era of global climate change. Implications for protected area policy and planning in Canada are also discussed.
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