Moving Forward: Southeast Asian Perspectives on Climate Change and Biodiversity

12. Biodiversity and Climate Change: Perspectives, Research Needs, and Institutions

231 Biodiversity and Climate Change: Perspectives, Research Needs, and Institutions 12 Biodiversity and Climate Change: Perspectives, Research Needs, and Institutions , Percy E. Sajise, Mariliza V. Ticsay, Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr., Rodrigo U. Fuentes, and Rodel D. Lasco TRENDS AND IMPLICATIONS Climate change is no longer a prediction or a speculation. It is already taking place in many places around the world including Southeast Asia. Long-term data on temperature and sea levels in an archipelagic country like the Philippines, and a partly continental country like Thailand and Vietnam, as reported in the chapters on country perspectives, indicate an increasing trend over the years. Precipitation patterns are less consistently perceived as increasing or decreasing in particular areas. A more worrisome concern is that the rate of change in climate may be faster than predicted, and the time to develop mitigating and adaptive strategies are running short as extreme weather conditions, associated with these changes, are becoming more prevalent. Another dimension of this change is the element of scale, both in time and space, which needs to be understood more accurately in order for society to be adequately prepared to deal with the myriad of implications on both the social and natural components of the environment. For example, in a crosscutting paper in this book, the concept of sustainagility, as a complement or even a form of sustainable strategy, was advanced. How will this take place? Under what conditions will sustainagility be adopted as a social and biological coping strategy for climate change? The importance of biodiversity maintenance and deployment, as being both an adaptive and mitigation strategy for climate change, was proposed, Reproduced from Moving Forward: Southeast Asian Perspectives on Climate Change and Biodiversity edited by Percy E. Sajise, Mariliza V. Ticsay and Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr. (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2010). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed.No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at 232 Percy Sajise, Mariliza Ticsay, Gil Saguiguit, Jr., Rodrigo Fuentes, and Rodel Lasco and evidences were provided. At the same time, the negative impacts of climate change on biodiversity is a major threat which need to be seriously considered in formulating a local, national, regional, and global plan of action for coping with climate change. The various chapters in this book also highlight the element of interconnectedness. The interconnectedness of the social parameters of poverty, loss of biodiversity, economy, and the increasing vulnerability to climate change; the interconnectedness of ecosystems in the landscape and the need for a holistic view and analysis of the various relationships between social and natural elements, which is needed to better understand the relationships between biodiversity and climate change; and the interconnectedness of the north and the south, which means that exchanges of materials and information must take place between these geographical and cultural divides to allow the effective development of strategies for climate change. The latter case will become more apparent in terms of the migration of pests and diseases across geographical zones. This change means that control must be initiated from the south before it becomes a problem in the north. It may also mean that materials and knowledge must be exchanged freely between the societies of these geographical zones, in spite of restrictions on Intellectual Property Rights, if human survival has to be enhanced in the face of climate change. This is where the importance of international platforms, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), are paramount as means to conserve biodiversity. This is also important in facilitating the much needed exchanges of plant germplasm to cope with the impacts of climate change and ensure food security for the nations of the world. CONDITIONS OF HIGH VULNERABILITY Geographical and Sociodemographic Conditions The geographical and sociodemographic conditions of high vulnerability need to be identified in the various countries of the Southeast Asian region. The identification of conditions of high vulnerability, especially in terms of the negative impacts of climate change, will help develop more responsive national and regional strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change, such as 233 Biodiversity and Climate Change: Perspectives, Research Needs, and Institutions what has been described in Chapter 10, the results of the Red River Estuary – Ba Lat Case Study in Vietnam. For example, the coastal zones and marginal fishermen...