A colloquium was organised by GREC-SUD in Marseille (17—19 December 2018) on how territories are adapting to climate change (programme [1]).
This colloquium, which brought together a large number of experts and policymakers around this subject of common interest, was organised around three broad themes:
- “The ocean, sea, and coast in times of climate change.”
“What cities will there be tomorrow in response to global change?”
“What transition(s) and levers of action exist for territories?”
Jean Jalbert, Director General of the Tour du Valat, made a presentation on Monday 17 December entitled “The issues facing coastal wetlands in times of climate change.” In particular, he championed the idea that the stakeholders in these vulnerable coastal zones must write a new history, one that is not based on conquest or control, but rather on adaptation and resilience.
He also participated in the session on Tuesday 18 December at 2.00 p.m. with Gunnel Fidenti, the facilitator of the regional natural area network (RREN [2]) in the Sud-PACA Region, “What contribution(s) can natural areas make to preserve biodiversity and inform territorial management practices?”
They both presented the approach used by the RREN, which in June 2018 organised in Barcelonnette (04) in partnership with the Mercantour National Park and the Tour du Valat a colloquium entitled “Natural areas: sentinels of change and climate buffers” (find out more [3]), which produced advocacy operations aimed at policymakers and the broader civil society, as well as a roadmap to guide the network until the 2020 IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille (find out more [4]).
This event was all the more meaningful in that the results of the COP24 held in Poland, which came to a laborious conclusion, demonstrated once again the difficulty countries have in taking realistic measures to fight against climate warming. Meanwhile, local territories and governments are proving they can be decisive stakeholders in this combat in which humanity must engage in the upcoming decades, because they are the most capable of mobilising stakeholders and policymakers around concrete local projects.
The Tour du Valat, a research institute for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands, based in the Camargue since 1954, is considerably developing its expertise in this area of primary concern to its activities.
To cope with the consequences of sea-level rise in the Camargue, it advocates nature-based solutions, which attempt to make coastal wetlands become buffer zones that can mitigate the consequences of climate warming for natural habitats and local populations (find out more about our approach in our saltworks restoration project [5]).
You can also find various reports and publications about this subject below:
- Euronews report: Sentinel satellites study climate-threatened Camargue [6]
- France 24 report: La Camargue menacée par la montée des eaux [7] (“The Camargue threatened by sea-level rise”—in French)
- France 3 report: La Camargue, un radeau fragile [8] (“The Camargue, a fragile raft” broadcast on 26/11/2018—in French)
- Article in the newspaper Libération Climat : comment vivre sur un territoire mouvant ? [9] (Climate: how to live on a moving territory?—in French)
- Conference by Jean Jalbert: Le changement climatique en Camargue [10] (Climate change in the Camargue, 11 September 2018, Arles—in French)