BOILING MEDITERRANEAN Marine Protected Areas facing climate change - illustrated facts and ideas

The sea between the lands, the cradle of world civilization, home to around 480 million people, is now under a severe threat due to human-induced global warming. Mediterranean waters are heating up three times faster than the global average, and this book illustrates some of the most tangible consequences of climate change and what this means for Mediter- ranean people. These stories are not future projections, they’re facts described by the work of hundreds of scientists, and witnessed today by coastal communities. Mediterranean war- ming is clearly visible, and we need to explain why this matters. Do we fully understand the scope of this drama? Can we come up with solutions? Will we be able to change our unsustainable lifestyle, our destructive economy, and rethink our re- lationship with the natural environment? Every day, nature gives us a warning and this illustrated book gives a voice to the many Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which suffer the catastrophic consequences of a ‘boiling sea’. Several Mediterranean MPAs, designed to achieve long-term nature conservation, are already facing major biodiversity and functio- nal alterations due to climate change, whereas others are expected to be impacted in the next few decades. There is, therefore, an urgency to mitigate these risks and consider adaptation options. The later we act, the greater the danger. Mediterranean MPAs are privileged sites for the monitoring of the impacts of climate change, and to support global efforts towards climate change adaptation and mitigation. They are also the best places to engage local communities, and to promote a behavioral and economic transition toward a sustainable and healthier relationship with the natural wor- ld.