**4. Conservation of natural systems**

Considering the wide ranging effects of climate change on regulatory, provisioning, supporting and cultural ecosystem services, there is a dire need to take proactive conservation measures to increase the resilience and resource base of the tropical and subtropical forests. There exist research gap highlighting the effect of individual climatic factors on each of the ecosystem services. Significant number of studies has been conducted on the effect of climatic changes on provisioning and regulatory services, nutrient cycling and primary production of the tropical and subtropical forests, but to the best of knowledge little is known for cultural services. Climate change is a gradual process and is linked with anthropogenic activities. The rising demand for energy supplies (coming mainly from fossil fuel resources), unintended land use land

*Ecosystem Services in the Changing Climate: Calling Attention for the Conservation of Tropical… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109800*

cover changes, increase in the air pollution and un-sustainable harvesting of forest resources are all linked with rising global atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature. In the tropic and subtropics, parts of the region might experience drought while other might experience floods in future. Therefore, the forests are expected to behave in different manner when dryness or wetness couples with warm temperature and elevated CO2. Restricting the use of fossil energy resources and shifting to sustainable and renewable energy resources might solve the problem to some extent. However, conservation efforts focusing on reforestation and afforestation of the areas combined with restoration of degraded ecosystems can help in increasing the area of the forests and thus supply of the services as depicted in **Figure 2**. Other measures such as promoting sustainable harvest and maintaining biodiversity and genetic resources might reduce vulnerability of the forests to changing climate. The communities should be banned from removing wood and permission should be granted for the collection of fallen deadwood only to meet the fuel wood need of the rural poor. There is generally a lack of forest conservation regulations and community involvement in the management of tropical and subtropical resources. Effective implementation of forest management practices, stakeholder involvement along with enforcement of laws prohibiting un-sustainable extraction of forest resources might help conserving existing resources as shown in **Figure 2**.

### **5. Conclusion**

Tropical and subtropical forests host a diverse array of species and play a significant role in delivery of ecosystem services. These forests are essential for ecological health and rural well being. The geographic location of these forests makes them more vulnerable to the impacts of changing climate. The projected rise in global temperature, changes in precipitation regime and elevated levels of CO2 will affect the supply of ecosystem services which might cause devastating effects on ecological and human systems. However, forest conservation and restoration efforts combined with reduction in greenhouse gas emission sources, community involvement and strengthening the relevant local institutions can protect the natural resource base of tropical and subtropical regions. Further research is need of the hour to investigate role of each of the climatic variable on individual ecosystem services to fill data gaps.
