Beyond Extinction Rates: Monitoring Wild Nature for the 2010 Target
Through commitments made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), governments have agreed to "achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth".
Early in 2004, governments meeting at the CBD Conference of Parties agreed to development of a set of potential indicators for assessing and reporting on whether or not this target is being achieved. There is significant opportunity for scientists to support this process.
Royal Society workshop
The Royal Society workshop, which involved more than 60 experts from 15 countries, met over two days in July 2004 to review what is known about these and other promising indicators - their strengths and weaknesses, and what additional measures need to be developed to broaden reporting against the 2010 target.
The workshop was divided into six working groups. Five working groups addressed broad sets of indicators (on species and populations, habitats and biomes, benefits and services, threats and drivers, and responses and interventions). The sixth working group explored how best to move this process of scientific review forward towards 2010.
Indicators
The workshop discussed the indicators already agreed by the CBD and concluded that those that were already well developed are likely to provide very useful information. Several other agreed indicators evidently need considerable further development, and the workshop identified key pieces of research that would contribute to this.
However, the workshop also recognised that the agreed measures leave several important gaps in the measurement of biodiversity loss, and so identified a number of new indicators that could provide important additional information, at relatively low cost, in time for 2010 reporting.
All of the indicators that the workshop discussed fit within the focal areas identified within the CBD framework. Each of these indicators are listed in the following tables, including both indicators that participants agreed could be developed and delivered now, and potential new indicators.
CBD Focal Area: Status and trends of the components of biological diversity
| Habitats and biomes working group |
| Extent of forests |
| Quality of forests |
| Extent of shrublands, grasslands and deserts |
| Quality of shrublands, grasslands and deserts |
| Extent of croplands |
| Extent of wetlands and large water bodies |
| Catchment condition - land cover and extent of riparian vegatation |
| % live coral cover |
| Extent and quality of estruaries |
| Extent and location of mangroves, seagrass and macroalgal beds |
|
| Species and populations working group |
| Living Planet Index |
| Red List Index |
| Sampled Red List Index |
|
| Responses and interventions working group |
| Protected area coverage: % habitat protected by habitat sub-type (area-based) |
| Protected area coverage: % threatened and geographically-concentrated species protected (species-based) |
| Protected area coverage: % key biodiversity areas protected (site-based) |
| Protected area coverage: % predicted proportion of invertebrate and plant species captured by protected areas (from models) |
| Investment in protected areas |
| Management effectiveness of protected areas |
| National and international investment in biodiversity conservation/protected areas |
CBD Focal Area: Threats to biological diversity
CBD Focal Area: Ecosystem integrity, goods and services
| Threats and drivers working group |
| Marine Trophic Index |
| Numbers of dams |
|
| Benefits and services working group |
| Sediment loads in rivers |
| Intact invertebrate communities |
| % population without potable water |
| Carbon storage in ecosystems |
| Market share of nature-related tourism |
| Hit rates for biodiversity-related websites |
| Pesticide use per unit agricultural harvest |
| Agricultural harvest per unit effort |
| Fish harvest per unit effort |
| Timber and fuelwood harvest per unit effort |
Getting involved
If you have interest and experience in these areas, we strongly encourage you to review the papers on 2010 indicators that are already being worked on by the CBD Secretariat, and to provide your comments on-line. The CBD website includes a set of webpages on the 2010 target, and discussion fora on the agreed indicators.
Workshop organisation
The workshop followed a Royal Society Discussion Meeting "Beyond extinction rates: monitoring wild nature for the 2010 targets", and drew on the outcome of that meeting. The workshop was organised by:
- Andrew Balmford, University of Cambridge
- Andy Dobson, University of Princeton
- Ben ten Brink, Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid & Milieu
- Elizabeth Kennedy, Conservation International
- Jeremy Harrison, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre
- Joanna Phillips, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
- M. Sanjayan, The Nature Conservancy
- Taylor Ricketts, World Wildlife Fund US
The discussion meeting was organised by:
- Andrew Balmford, University of Cambridge
- Georgina Mace, Zoological Society of London
- Sir Peter Crane, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
- Rhys Green, University of Cambridge
Support at the Royal Society was provided by Hannah Jemmett, and at the University of Cambridge by Bruno Walther. Financial support for the workshop was provided by the following organizations:
Posted: 23 July 2004
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