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Developing a CMS Programme of Work on Climate Change and Migratory Species

14th April 2014

Polar bear. Photographer: Alan Wilson CMS has recently held a workshop of national representatives and experts in Guácimo, Costa Rica from 9-11 April in the light of new information published on climate change.

The workshop coincided with the release of the latest Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which also warns about the impacts of climate change on many plant and animal species.

The workshop has confirmed that climate change is one of the most important threats to migratory species and the ecosystems on which they depend”, said Professor Colin Galbraith, CMS Scientific Councillor for Climate Change, who chaired the meeting. “Participants have stressed the need for urgent international actions to address the complex threats from climate change. It is encouraging to see delegates from around the world working together to outline a Programme of Work for countries in the CMS to combat the effects of climate change on migratory animals.

The workshop was to prepare a CMS Programme of Work on Climate Change and Migratory Species, in line with Resolution 10.19 of the Conference of the Parties. The Programme builds upon the discussions and the draft resolution adopted during the Technical Workshop on the Impact of Climate Change on Migratory Species, held in Tour du Valat, France, in 2011.

One of the key items is to increase our understanding of the impact climate change is having on migratory species and the habitats on which they depend. The Programme urges Parties to:

  1. develop and implement monitoring regimes in order to assess the susceptibility of these species to such disturbances, and to prepare targeted action plans for those species considered to be most vulnerable to climate change;

  2. implement actions at the ecosystem level to improve the resilience of migratory species and their habitats to climate change;

  3. explore the interlinkages that exists between conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, to reduce the additional impacts on migratory species resulting from changes in human behaviour due to environmental change; and

  4. strengthen the synergies amongst and within Parties, and the coordination of the UNEP/CMS Secretariat with other MEAs, in order to implement a harmonized response to climate change at all levels.

Participants had also the opportunity to discuss a draft resolution on climate change to be submitted to COP11. The main objective of this resolution will be to adopt the Programme and to highlight the key priorities in which Parties should concentrate to mitigate impacts of climate change on migratory species. The results of the workshop will be presented to CMS COP11, which will be held in Quito, Ecuador, 4 – 9 November 2014.

Further information and the Draft Programme of Work on Climate Change is available from the CMS website


CMS and Polar bears

Wild Mirgation has been following this CMS Programme of Work on Climate Change and Migratory Species closely.
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are decreasing in many parts of their range, and many scientists are predicting that two-thirds of polar bears will be gone by mid-century.

Fragmentation and loss of sea-ice are the most critical conservation concerns for polar bears today. Polar regions have experienced significant warming in recent decades. Increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are having a larger effect on climate in the Arctic than anywhere else on the globe. Warming has been most pronounced across the Arctic Ocean Basin and along the Antarctic Peninsula, with significant decreases in the extent and seasonal duration of sea-ice. Rapid retreat of glaciers and disintegration of ice sheets have also been documented. Arctic sea ice extent is now more than two million square kilometres less than it was in the late 20th century, and the duration and magnitude of the current decline in sea ice seem to be unprecedented for the past 1,450 years.

Polar bears are distributed throughout the circumpolar basin with the southern extent of the distribution limited by the extent of Arctic sea-ice. Their preferred habitat is the annual sea-ice over the continental shelf and inter-island archipelagos that encircle the polar basin. Sea-ice allows polar bears to exploit the productive marine environment by providing a platform from which they can hunt ringed and bearded seals and occasionally take belugas, narwhals, walrus, harbor seals, reindeer and birds, in an environment that has been largely free of competitors and predators, with the exception of humans in nearshore areas.

Polar bears show fidelity to geographic regions. They occupy multiannual home ranges outside of which they seldom venture. Not all areas of their multiannual home ranges are used each year. In areas of volatile ice, a large multiannual home range, of which only a portion is used in any one season or year, is an important part of the polar bear life history strategy.

During spring and summer polar bears in the Arctic archipelago use land-fast ice most intensively, whereas in Baffin Bay moving ice was a stronger preference. In autumn, female polar bears from both regions preferred multiyear ice. Differences were also apparent between the two regions for the distances of bears to the ice edge, as well the preference to closed ice. It is likely that further differences exist for each of the other regions. For instance, another study found that polar bears in the Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf in the western Canadian Arctic preferred floe-edge, moving ice, and drifting fast-ice habitats in the late winter and spring.

Across most of their range, pregnant female polar bears excavate dens in snow and ice in early winter and give birth in those dens during midwinter, emerging in the spring when their cubs are approximately three months old. In some areas, notably the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the polar basin, many females den and give birth to their young on drifting pack ice.

Wild Migration is strategically working towards a listing of polar bear on CMS Appendix I, at CMS CoP11 in recognition of the urgent and globally shared responsibility to protect polar bear habitat from climate change.

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