There is almost no doubt about the role played by Protected Areas in the provision of ecosystem services and goods of various types. From the best preserved forests, coastal ecosystems, marshes, mountains and pre-desert scrublands we receive water supply services, medicinal plants, honey, energy, pine nuts, wood, mushrooms, hunting and agricultural products. Another type, the regulatory services, favour soil retention and erosion control, act as buffer zones against climate change, support pollination, biological balance and flood control. Moreover, cultural type services comprise all those intangible assets provided by ecosystems which can be illustrated by some recreational uses, the local ecology knowledge, aesthetic values or their importance as scientific knowledge sources.

However, climate change is inexorably modifying the time, place and form of these services supply through deep transformations in the ecological function of ecosystems. A more functionally complex ecosystem will have more capacity to provide a higher variety of services and these will have a better quality. Furthermore, functional complexity will strengthen these areas in the face of the effects of climate change, making them more resistant to extreme drought, lack of rain, wood pest outbreaks and fires.

These are precisely the notions framing the Life ADAPTAMED project from Cabo de Gata-Níjar to Doñana and including the Mediterranean high mountains in Sierra Nevada. These three Protected Areas treasure ecosystems that provide the assets and services already mentioned, though the level of their impact on society is much wider. Supply, regulatory and cultural services are consumed beyond the boundaries of the Protected Areas so the social impact of these services provided goes beyond their borders, reaching different levels in our society.

More information: José Miguel Barea

Photo: Scrubland landscape in Sierra Nevada Nature Area © Sierra Nevada NP