CBD Strategic Goal: B: Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use

C: To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity

Main Aichi Biodiversity Target: Target 5: By 2020, the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and fragmentation is significantly reduced.

Target 6: By 2020 all fish and invertebrate stocks and aquatic plants are managed and harvested sustainably, legally and applying ecosystem based approaches, so that overfishing is avoided, recovery plans and measures are in place for all depleted species, fisheries have no significant adverse impacts on threatened species and vulnerable ecosystems and the impacts of fisheries on stocks, species and ecosystems are within safe ecological limits.

Target 12: By 2020 the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained.

Secondary Aichi Biodiversity Targets: Targets 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14

CBD AHTEG Headline Indicator: Trends in abundance, distribution and extinction risk of species; Trends in pressures from unsustainable agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture; Trends in pressures from habitat conversion, pollution, invasive species, climate change, overexploitation and underlying drivers

CBD Operational Indicator: Trends in habitat dependent species

Key Indicator Partners: 

Associate Indicator Partner: CAFF (Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna)

Development Status: Ready for global use

Data Available: Global time series (1980 onwards, periods differing for different taxonomic groups); National time series (1980 onwards, disaggregated from global data, time periods variable); Global baseline (Several taxonomic groups have been comprehensively assessed but so far RLI has been calculated for: Amphibians, Birds, Corals, Mammals. For further developments see Future Development section); Regional/national baseline (There are 515 national Red Lists recorded for different taxa. These are from 122 countries. 43 of these are available online at http://www.nationalredlist.org/. There is some inconsistency in the application of the Red List Categories and Criteria for some taxonomic groups at a national level.); National case studies (RLI calculated for Venezuela, Australia, Paraguay, Finland,Sweden, and Denmark)

Global indicator aggregated from: Species level, which may be collected nationally, regionally and/or globally

Indicator can be disaggregated at: Regional and national level, and by plants

The Living Planet Index (LPI) is calculated using time-series data on more than 9000 populations of over 2,600 species of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish from all around the globe. The changes in the population of each species are aggregated and shown as an index relative to 1970, which is given a value of 1. The LPI can be thought of as a biological analogue of a stock market index that tracks the value of a set of stocks and shares traded on an exchange.

The Global LPI is the aggregate of two equally-weighted indices of vertebrate populations - the temperate and the tropical LPIs – calculated as the geometric mean of the two. The tropical LPI consists of the terrestrial and freshwater species populations found in the Afrotropical, Indo-Pacific and Neotropical realms and marine species populations from the zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The temperate LPI includes all terrestrial and freshwater species populations from the Palearctic and Neartic realms, and marine species north and south of the tropics. In the tropical and temperate LPIs the overall trends in terrestrial, freshwater and marine species are given equal weight. The results of the LPI are published biennially in the Living Planet Report.

Last update: 2012

Next update: 2014

The LPI is not only a global index but can also be calculated for selected regions, nations, biomes or taxonomic groups, provided that there are sufficient data available.

Level at which the indicator is currently used: Global

Levels at which the indicator could be used: Regional, national, sub-global

Global Living Planet Index (1970-2008)
Source: WWF & ZSL

A decrease in the LPI represents an overall reduction of species populations, meaning more species have declined than increased in abundance. This implies that diversity will have reduced, even if none of those species populations has declined to zero (extinction).

A constant LPI represents no overall change in species populations and would imply no overall biodiversity loss.

The current global LPI shows a 28% decline from 1970 to 2008 meaning that on average, vertebrate populations have declined in abundance over this 38 year period. The temperate and tropical indices show contrasting results. The tropical index shows that vertebrate populations have declined markedly (61%) since 1970 whereas temperate populations have increased by an average of 31%. Although the tropical index reveals a worse trend than the temperate index, it does not necessarily imply that tropical biodiversity is in a worse state as temperate populations may have undergone similar declines before 1970 when pressures were already high in many temperate regions.

The LPI is not only a global index but can also be calculated for regions and nations provided that there are sufficient data available.

LPIs have been produced for Uganda, Canada, Mediterranean Wetlands and Arctic species. At present data submitted by nations and regions must be sent directly to the responsible organizations for the LPI, WWF International and ZSL. However, work is currently underway to make the database available online, in the hope that this will encourage nations and regions to submit their data to produce both their own indicators and strengthen the global indicator.

For more information about producing regional and national Living Planet Indices contact Jonathan Loh at WWF/ZSL or Louise McRae.

The present aim is to increase the species population data coverage of the LPI in tropical regions, where there are more species but fewer data than in temperate regions, and for less well represented vertebrate groups (amphibians, reptiles, fishes). The LPI database will be made accessible via the worldwide web.