Monitoring global rates of biodiversity change: challenges that arise in meeting the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2010 goals

Abstract

By agreeing to strive for 'a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biological diversity' by the year 2010, political leaders at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (held in Johannesburg, South Africa) presented conservation scientists with a great opportunity, but also one of their most significant challenges. This is an extremely exciting and laudable development, but this reporting process could be made yet more powerful if it incorporates, from the outset, independent scientific assessment of the measures, how they are analysed, and practical ways of plugging key gaps. This input is crucial if the measures are to be widely owned, credible and robust to the vigorous external scrutiny to which they will doubtless be exposed. Assessing how rates of biodiversity loss have changed from current levels by 2010 will require that a given attribute has been measured at least three times; however, most habitats, species, populations and ecosystem services have not been assessed even once. Furthermore, the best data on which to base estimates of biodiversity loss are biased towards the charismatic vertebrate species; unfortunately, these supply minimal services to the human economy. We have to find ways to redress this taxonomic imbalance and expand our analyses to consider the vast diversity of invertebrate, fungal and microbial species that play a role in determining human health and economic welfare.In the first part of this paper I will use examples from local and regional monitoring of biological diversity to examine the desired properties of 'ideal indicators'. I will then change focus and examine an initial framework that asks how we might monitor changes in the economic goods and services provided by natural ecosystems. I will use this exercise to examine how the set of possible indicators given by the Convention on Biological Diversity might be modified in ways that provide a more critical assay of the economic value of biological diversity. Here I will emphasize that we need not only to monitor these benefits, but also to significantly increase public awareness of human dependence upon the role that non-voting species play in driving the world's financial economy.

The 2010 challenge: data availability, information needs and extraterrestrial insights

“…Fourth, there is a clear need expressed in several papers of this volume (and by the Martian consultant) to develop better models describing how the human, biological, physical and chemical components of the Earth system interact (Dobson 2005;van Jaarsveld et al 2005;Watson 2005). Such models, still presently in their infancy, would improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which wild nature affects human wellbeing, and help identify the most effective policy levers for slowing biodiversity loss.…”

Conservation of invertebrate biodiversity on a mountain in a global biodiversity hotspot, Cape Floral Region

“…Invertebrates play a vital role in the ecosystem processes of the CFR (Wright 1993), while the monitoring of invertebrates has recently become a global priority owing to their ecosystem services (Dobson 2005;Rohr et al 2007). Currently, there is concern over the global loss of invertebrate pollinators (Kearns et al 1998), which are important in maintaining the CFR's current plant diversity.…”

Stakeholder Visions for Biodiversity Conservation in Developing Countries

“…At the same time, the time frame for the 2010 goal did not allow full assessment, monitoring, or development of clear national strategies for biodiversity protection [28,29]. According to [29], it was important to "incorporate an independent, transparent, credible and robust scientific assessment of the potential success of such policies", but the lack of sufficient time was part of the reasons why this policy process was unsuccessful.…”