Resources

Review of national approaches to assessing progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets

It is evident that a variety of approaches are used by countries in order to assess their progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in Part III of their National Reports. This document aims to identify and summarise these approaches, and the strengths, limitations and considerations for use of each of these.

​Biodiversity Indicators for National Use: Experience and Guidance

This document contains the results of a project carried out with four country partners in order to develop biodiversity indicators for national use.

National Indicators, Monitoring and Reporting for the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020

This report has compiled an evidence base for the existence of national and regional indicators in relation to the 2010 Biodiversity Target, and whether these might be relevant to the new Aichi Targets, but it does not aim to identify which indicators might be needed or suitable for the Aichi Targets. Similarly, the report does not consider the specific data needs and sources for possible indicators for the Aichi Targets. The latter subject is addressed by the GEO‐BON report “Adequacy of Existing Biodiversity Observation Systems to support the CBD 2020 Targets”, which is also designed to support the 2011 AHTEG on indicators.

Living Planet Index: Guidance for national and regional use

This guidance document is one of a series produced with the support of the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (2010 BIP) to assist Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) track their progress towards the CBD’s 2010 Target. The Living Planet Index (LPI) has been selected as one of the indicators suitable for assessing progress towards and communicating the 2010 Target at a global level. The aim of this document is to provide information to support the calculation and interpretation of the Living Planet Index at the national and regional scales.

Biodiversity Indicators and the 2010 Biodiversity Target: Outputs, experiences and lessons learnt from the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership

Th is report summarises the experiences and lessons learnt from the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (2010 BIP), as well as providing details of 27 global indicators developed in support of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s 2010 Biodiversity Target.

Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines

The target adopted by world leaders of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 was not met but this stimulated a new suite of biodiversity targets for 2020 adopted by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2010. Indicators will be essential for monitoring progress towards these targets and the CBD will be defining a suite of relevant indicators, building on those developed for the 2010 target. Here we argue that explicitly linked sets of indicators offer a more useful framework than do individual indicators because the former are easier to understand, communicate and interpret to guide policy. A Response-Pressure-State-Benefit framework for structuring and linking indicators facilitates an understanding of the relationships between policy actions, anthropogenic threats, the status of biodiversity and the benefits that people derive from it. Such an approach is appropriate at global, regional, national and local scales but for many systems it is easier to demonstrate causal linkages and use them to aid decision making at national and local scales. We outline examples of linked indicator sets for humid tropical forests and marine fisheries as illustrations of the concept and conclude that much work remains to be done in developing both the indicators and the causal links between them.

Linked indicator sets for addressing biodiversity loss

The target adopted by world leaders of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 was not met but this stimulated a new suite of biodiversity targets for 2020 adopted by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2010. Indicators will be essential for monitoring progress towards these targets and the CBD will be defining a suite of relevant indicators, building on those developed for the 2010 target. Here we argue that explicitly linked sets of indicators offer a more useful framework than do individual indicators because the former are easier to understand, communicate and interpret to guide policy. A Response-Pressure-State-Benefit framework for structuring and linking indicators facilitates an understanding of the relationships between policy actions, anthropogenic threats, the status of biodiversity and the benefits that people derive from it. Such an approach is appropriate at global, regional, national and local scales but for many systems it is easier to demonstrate causal linkages and use them to aid decision making at national and local scales. We outline examples of linked indicator sets for humid tropical forests and marine fisheries as illustrations of the concept and conclude that much work remains to be done in developing both the indicators and the causal links between them.

CBD Technical Series 72: Earth Observation for Biodiversity Monitoring

This report shows how earth observation technologies can and should fit into systems for biodiversity monitoring, as well as demonstrates how these approaches could further improve relevant indicators for the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. It illustrates a clear track from observations done by remote sensing platforms through Essential Biodiversity Variables to biodiversity indicators and ultimately to the assessment of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and ultimately in support of evidence-based decision making. There is clearly huge potential for involving the wide range of current and emerging Earth Observation products in biodiversity monitoring. However, it is imperative that a balance is achieved between innovation in new products and the continuity of existing earth observations. A consistent, comparable readily available time series of biodiversity-relevant earth observations, such as long-term land cover change, is a pressing need. If this need were filled it would greatly enhance our ability to keep biodiversity and ecosystems under proper review and take well informed policy decisions.

Review of the global indicator suite, key global gaps and indicator options for future assessment of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020

The Terms of Reference for the AHTEG on Indicators for the Strategic Plan 2011-2020 (decision XII/1), called on the AHTEG to ‘identify a small set of measureable potential indicators that could be used to monitor progress at the global level towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets with a focus on those that are currently not well addressed and those that may be relevant to the United Nations post-2015 development agenda and sustainable development goals’. This document has been developed to support the AHTEG by identifying gaps in the current suite of indicators brought together under the BIP, building upon the indicative list of indicators adopted in decision XI/3 and reviewing potential indicators to fill these gaps. This document is not a report on the state of the world’s indicators.

Measuring Ecosystem Services: Guidance on Developing Ecosystem Services Indicators

These guidelines have been produced to support the development of ecosystem service indicators at the national and regional level for uses in reporting, assessments, policy making, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management, environmental management, development planning and education. The guidance contains four key sections: