**Acknowledgements**

such as hunting and disease control impacts by boundary fencing of the park, culling operations and water provisioning, have influenced the dynamics of large herbivore population trends in the Kruger National Park (KNP) over the past century [83, 84]. Thus, the interactive effects of disease and climate-induced factors have the potential to affect many iconic African wildlife species under a changing climate. Changing climatic conditions are therefore likely to affect safari hunting and the wildlife tourism sector due to changes in the abundance of such iconic species. Mawdsley et al. [81, 82] suggest that effective climate change adaptation incorporates protec-

Generally, in Southern Africa, augmenting natural water supplies by providing artificial water points is an intervention commonly adopted by managers of national parks and other large protected areas. In addition, some of the most commonly used adaptation strategies to

**i.** Expansion of protected areas to include migration corridors and seasonal feeding areas

**ii.** Improving connectivity of habitats to facilitate dispersal to appropriate habitats [27]. In view of the magnitude of impacts, in future it will be important to incorporate predicted and observed climate change impacts into overall wildlife management plans and to review and modify existing laws, regulations and policies regarding wildlife management. Kupika and Nhamo [84] noted that most countries in Southern Africa do not mainstream climate change in their biodiversity-related policies. Thus, lack on enabling policy framework retards progress in as far as responding to climate-related disasters is concerned. Other countries, e.g. Zimbabwe, rely on a centralized system towards disaster risk reduction. Although the implementation on the ground is multi-sectoral, disaster response is hampered by bureaucracy within the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. Thus, protected area managers are not flexible to directly implement any short-term or long-term

Apart from mainstreaming enabling laws and regulations, consideration should also be given to managing protected areas for climate change mitigation through carbon storage and sequestration, as well as for other ecosystem services. Despite all efforts to adapt to the changing climate, efforts are hampered by several factors related to technical and financial constraints to implement the strategies. Africa as a continent is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of other multiple stressors such as poverty; illiteracy and lack of skills; weak institutions; lack of political will to confront climate change challenges; limited infrastructure; lack of technology and information; poor health care; armed conflicts; rampant corruption and host of other human anthropogenic activities [13]. Thus, managing threats to the wildlife

resources consequently include managing other confounding stressors to biodiversity.

Generally, climate-induced extreme events such as prolonged and frequent drought periods influenced the abundance and distribution of wildlife resources across Southern

tionist and interventionist approaches (**Table 2**).

[27].

16 Selected Studies in Biodiversity

**4. Conclusion**

deal with impacts of climate change in the wildlife sector include:

adaptation strategies to ensure improved species conservation.

This work was conducted within the framework of the Research Platform "Production and Conservation in Partnership (HYPERLINK "http://www.rp-pcp.org" www.rp-pcp.org). This research was supported by funding from the European Union under the Delivering Innovation and technology through the Reinforcement of Agricultural and Multidisciplinary research capacity (DREAM) project & the Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT), Zimbabwe.
