Climate Change and Options of Adaptation for Cetaceans and other Marine Biodiversity of the Eastern Tropical Pacific

Costa Rica 9th-11th February 2009

Early last February, the workshop "Climate change and options of adaptation for cetaceans and other marine biodiversity of the Eastern Tropical Pacific," was carried out in Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica, in which Fundación Cethus had the opportunity to participate.

At present everybody knows that one of the great problems that humanity faces is to confront the consequences and impacts that climate change generates across the world. Particularly, and on a large scale, the impacts of climate change on the marine environment, predicted and/or observed, include increases in water temperature, changes in sea level, and in the ocean circulation, drop on sea ice, changes in water salinity, increases in the CO₂ concentrations, ocean acidification processes, changes in precipitation patterns, increases in the frequency of storms, in the wind speed and changes in swell conditions and extreme climate events. Cetaceans also have to face this phenomenon, whose effects are suspected to act directly and/or indirectly on them, influencing, in a so far unclear way, its distribution, diet, migratory routes, availability of prey, reproduction, etc.

Although this issue was taken into account in several occasions by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), just in its last annual meeting held in Santiago de Chile, in mid 2008, it was decided that during 2009, more than 10 years after the first meeting on this issue, organized by the Commission, the second workshop on climate change would be conducted in Siena, Italy. Within this context the Government of Costa Rica took the initiative to conduct a workshop on the situation in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) along with a discussion on the assessment of the vulnerability of cetaceans and options of adaptation. The workshop would also include an analysis of scenarios of marine and coastal climate change in the ETP, which could be useful to shape possible options of adaptation in the region, for specific groups of marine biodiversity.

Even though this workshop had a regional vision, it allowed the attendance of various specialists from all the world related to climate, oceanographic and marine biodiversity phenomena, which were divided into 5 working groups: cetaceans, fish and plankton, marine and coastal ecosystems, other endangered species, physico-chemical oceanographic variables, from which recommendations emerged, that will surely be of interest and may be considered in other regions.

With these recommendations a document would be produce to be submitted to the Workshop on Climate Change and Cetaceans of the IWC which will be conducted in Siena, and whose results will be surely presented at the same, in the next IWC annual meeting to be held in the middle of 2009.

We would like to thanks for the effort and support of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications of Costa Rica (MINAET) and non-governmental organizations such as WDCS, EcoAdapt, Fundación PROMAR, TNC, CI, IFAW and WWF, among others, who extended their invitation and made possible the attendance of Fundación Cethus to this event.


Fundación Cethus attented the workshop "Climate Change and Options of Adaptation for Cetaceans and other Marine Biodiversity of the Eastern Tropical Pacific"
Costa Rica 9th-11th February 2009 Early last February, the workshop "Climate change and options of adaptation for cetaceans and other marine biodiversity of the Eastern Tropical Pacific," was carried out in Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica, in which Fundación Cethus had the opportunity to participate. At present everybody knows that one of the great problems that humanity faces is to confront the consequences and impacts that climate change generates across the world. Particularly, and on a large scale, the impacts of climate change on the marine environment, predicted and/or observed, include increases in water temperature, changes in sea level, and in the ocean circulation, drop on sea ice, changes in water salinity, increases in the CO₂ concentrations, ocean acidification processes, changes in precipitation patterns, increases in the frequency of storms, in the wind speed and changes in swell conditions and extreme climate events. Cetaceans also have to face this phenomenon, whose effects are suspected to act directly and/or indirectly on them, influencing, in a so far unclear way, its distribution, diet, migratory routes, availability of prey, reproduction, etc. Although this issue was taken into account in several occasions by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), just in its last annual meeting held in Santiago de Chile, in mid 2008, it was decided that during 2009, more than 10 years after the first meeting on this issue, organized by the Commission, the second workshop on climate change would be conducted in Siena, Italy. Within this context the Government of Costa Rica took the initiative to conduct a workshop on the situation in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) along with a discussion on the assessment of the vulnerability of cetaceans and options of adaptation. The workshop would also include an analysis of scenarios of marine and coastal climate change in the ETP, which could be useful to shape possible options of adaptation in the region, for specific groups of marine biodiversity. Even though this workshop had a regional vision, it allowed the attendance of various specialists from all the world related to climate, oceanographic and marine biodiversity phenomena, which were divided into 5 working groups: cetaceans, fish and plankton, marine and coastal ecosystems, other endangered species, physico-chemical oceanographic variables, from which recommendations emerged, that will surely be of interest and may be considered in other regions. With these recommendations a document would be produce to be submitted to the Workshop on Climate Change and Cetaceans of the IWC which will be conducted in Siena, and whose results will be surely presented at the same, in the next IWC annual meeting to be held in the middle of 2009. We would like to thanks for the effort and support of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications of Costa Rica (MINAET) and non-governmental organizations such as WDCS, EcoAdapt, Fundación PROMAR, TNC, CI, IFAW and WWF, among others, who extended their invitation and made possible the attendance of Fundación Cethus to this event.
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Fundación Cethus attented the workshop "Climate Change and Options of Adaptation for Cetaceans and other Marine Biodiversity of the Eastern Tropical Pacific"