Background+and+Objectives

Over the last half-century, human activities have eroded Earth’s life-support system (Likens, 1991; Vitousek et al., 1997; Steffen et al., 2004; Foley et al., 2005; Haberl et al., 2007). This has caused an overall global decline in many of Earth’s most important ecosystem services, the benefits that people derive from ecosystems (Daily, 1997; MEA, 2005). This unsustainable trajectory demands a dramatic change in society’s relationship with the environment to avoid irreparable damage to Earth’s life-support systems. At the global scale, many of these changes appear to be approaching or may have exceeded the safe operating limits for the long-term well-being of humanity (Rockström et al., 2009). The strategy of planetary boundaries implies the need for new and adaptive governance at the global, regional, and local scales. At present, the traditional governance and management paradigms are often unaware and unable of taking actions regarding these global risks. Planetary boundaries define, as it were, the boundaries of the “planetary playing field” for humanity if we want to be sure of avoiding major human-induced environmental change on a global scale. media type="custom" key="10719218"  This new strategy is gradually gaining momentum. Recently, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged world leaders to implement it. The research on identifying critical planetary boundaries and how we can create a "safe operating space for humanity" has gained increasing momentum since its launch in September 2009. Policy makers and the world's leading scientists on global sustainability are now jointly working to take the message to the highest decision-making level. "Help us defend the science" Further evidence of this is the recent statements by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who, during a speech to the Leaders' Dialogue on Climate Change, urged global society to stand behind science on planetary boundaries. "Help us defend the science that shows we are destabilizing our climate and stretching planetary boundaries to a perilous degree," said the Secretary-General. He told the leaders that he was counting on their commitment to agreement at the upcoming COP17 in Durban, South Africa, later this year, and at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil next year.

In Andalusia, the Region’s Ministry of Environment is developing a strategy for adapting its traditional management scheme of biodiversity and the natural environment into a new and more adaptive approach. This strategy has been formalized within the Andalusian Program for Adaptation to Climate Change. This program includes the creation of the Observatory Network for Global Change in Andalusia, a platform that integrates research and management to contribute with effective mitigation and adaptation to global change in natural areas of Andalusia. The network already has five nodes representing the major ecoregions of Andalusia. The node for drylands is placed in the Andalusian Center for the Assessment and Monitoring of Global Change, placed at the University of Almería. To evaluate the current status and provide monitoring indicators of Global Change effects on Andalusian drylands, CAESCG launched the GLOCHARID project in 2009, whose results will be used to characterize the boundaries of acceptable change in the drylands region. **The objective with this course is to gain enough knowledge and skills to respond to the following questions: what are the most important “planetary boundaries” in the Andalusian drylands?, what is the current knowledge on the limits for each one of them?, and what should be the "safe operational space" to warrant the sustainability of the ecological and social systems.**  

**References** Daily, G.C., 1997. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington. Foley, J.A., DeFries, R., Asner, G.P., Barford, C., Bonan, G., Carpenter, S.R., Chapin, F.S., III, Coe, M.T., Daily, G.C., Gibbs, H.K., Helkowski, J.H., Holloway, T., Howard, E.A., Kucharik, C.J., Monfreda, C., Patz, J.A., Prentice, I.C., Ramankutty, N., Snyder, P.K., 2005. Global consequences of land use. Science 309, 570-574. Haberl, H., Erb, K.H., Krausmann, F., Gaube, V., Bondeau, A., Plutzar, C., Gingrich, S., Lucht, W., Fischer-Kowalski, M., 2007. Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 104, 12942-12945. Likens, G.E., 1991. Human-accelerated environmental change. Bioscience 41, 130. MEA, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F.S., III, Lambin, E.F., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H.J., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C.A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P.K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R.W., Fabry, V.J., Hansen, J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P., Foley, J.A., 2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472-475. Steffen, W.L., Sanderson, A., Tyson, P.D., Jäger, J., Matson, P.A., Moore, B., III, Oldfield, F., Richardson, K., Schellnhuber, H.-J., Turner, B.L., II, Wasson, R.J., 2004. Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet under Pressure. Springer-Verlag, New York. Vitousek, P.M., Mooney, H.A., Lubchenco, J., Melillo, J.M., 1997. Human domination of Earth's ecosystems. Science 277, 494-499. [|__http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39627&Cr=climate+change&Cr1=__] [|__http://www.caescg.org__] [|__http://www.glocharid.org__]