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Published Version (Advanced Access)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Safeguarding climate-resilient mangroves requires only a moderate increase in the global protected area
Nature Communications, Vol.17(1), pp.1-11
2026
PMID: 41593080
Abstract
Climate change and anthropogenic activities threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services. Climate-smart conservation plans address these challenges by ensuring protection of some climate-resilient areas. However, integrating climate change in the design of conservation plans is often deemed too expensive, as it may require larger networks or protecting more costly sites from a conservation perspective. Using mangroves as a case study, we evaluate the efficiency of protecting mangroves in climate-smart versus climate-naïve reserve networks. We find that climate-smart conservation plans could provide sizable benefits (13.3%) for relatively moderate increases in protected area (+7.3%). Moreover, transboundary plans, involving cooperation among countries, require less area and protect more climate-resilient mangroves than nation-by-nation plans. Implementing these strategies would improve the current protected area network for mangroves, which currently has poor climate resilience. Our methodology could potentially be tested on other ecosystems, assuming sufficient information exists regarding their distribution, biodiversity, and resilience to climate change.
Details
- Title
- Safeguarding climate-resilient mangroves requires only a moderate increase in the global protected area
- Authors
- Alvise Dabalà (Corresponding Author) - The University of QueenslandChristopher J Brown - University of TasmaniaTom Van der Stocken - Vrije Universiteit BrusselChristina A Buelow - The University of SydneyDavid S Schoeman - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringDaniel C Dunn - The University of QueenslandCatherine E Lovelock - The University of QueenslandFarid Dahdouh-Guebas - Zoological Society of LondonJason Flower - University of California, Santa BarbaraSandra Neubert - The University of QueenslandKristine Camille V Buenafe - The University of QueenslandJason D Everett - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationKris Jypson T Esturas - Université Libre de BruxellesAnthony J Richardson - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
- Publication details
- Nature Communications, Vol.17(1), pp.1-11
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41467-026-68877-4
- ISSN
- 2041-1723
- PMID
- 41593080
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- The datasets used in our study are publicly available online. See article text for details.
- Grant note
- F.D.G. and K.J.T.E. were supported by the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems – TROPIMUNDO, which is funded by the European Commission (EC contract N° 2019-1451). J.F. received funding from the Waitt Institute.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991203451002621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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