A user’s guide to biodiversity indicators · A.12 Water quality in freshwater ecosystems 28 ......

A user’s guide to biodiversityindicators

EASACii | March 2005 | A user’s guide to biodiversity indicators

Acknowledgement

This study was commissioned and financed by the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of theEuropean Parliament.

ISBN 0 85403 612 1

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Contents

PageForeword v

1 Summary briefing 11.1 Key points 11.2 The EASAC process 21.3 What is meant by biodiversity? 21.4 Why is it important? 21.5 Can biodiversity be measured? 21.6 What progress is being made at European and global levels? 31.7 What could be done now? 31.8 What is stopping it? 31.9 Is this a problem? 41.10 What further needs to be done to produce a better framework for monitoring? 41.11 Recommendations 4

2 Introduction 52.1 What is biodiversity? 52.2 Biodiversity in Europe 52.3 Why does it matter? 72.4 What is happening to biodiversity? 92.5 The need for measurement and assessment 112.6 Drivers of change 122.7 Progress in developing indicators 132.8 Why has it been so difficult to make progress? 13

3 Conclusions and recommended next steps 153.1 Immediate and short term – what is needed to have indicators in place to assess 15

progress against the 2010 target3.2 The longer term – developing indicators for the future 16

AnnexesA Assessment of available indicators 17A.1 Trends in extent of selected biomes, ecosystems and habitats 17A.2 Trends in abundance and distribution of selected species 18A.3 Change in status of threatened and/or protected species 19A.4 Trends in genetic diversity of domesticated animals, cultivated plants and fish 19

species of major socio-economic importanceA.5 Coverage of protected areas 20A.6 Area of forest, agricultural, fishery and aquaculture ecosystems under sustainable management 22A.7 Nitrogen deposition 23A.8 Number and costs of alien species 24A.9 Impact of climate change on biodiversity 24A.10 Marine trophic index 25A.11 Connectivity and fragmentation of ecosystems 27A.12 Water quality in freshwater ecosystems 28A.13 Investment in biodiversity 28A.14 Public awareness and participation 29A.15 Patents 30A.16 Living planet index 30A.17 Natural capital index 32

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B Policy context: an overview of biodiversity policies in Europe 33B.1 The international policy framework 33B.2 Current biodiversity indicator initiatives 34

C References 37

D Membership of EASAC Biodiversity Indicators Working Group 41

Figures1 Map of species richness 62 A classification of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity 83 Numbers of critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable species of vertebrates in Europe 94 Cumulated area of nationally designated areas over time in 30 European countries for 21

the period 1900-20025 Trends in mean trophic levels of fisheries landings, 1950 to 2000 266 The Living planet index for terrestrial, freshwater and marine species, with 95% confidence intervals 31

Tables1 Nationally extinct, threatened, and near-threatened species of plants, animals, and fungi in Finland and

Portugal 102 Summary of international biodiversity indicators 35

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Foreword

This report is intended to give policy-makers the tools toengage with debates about biodiversity. It comes at atimely moment. The Lisbon aspiration to make theEuropean Union ‘the most competitive and dynamicknowledge-based economy in the world’ includes acommitment to deliver this in a way that isenvironmentally sustainable. The EU’s 2001 strategy forsustainable development sets the more specific ambitionto ‘protect and restore habitats and natural systems andhalt the loss of biodiversity by 2010’. And, at the globallevel, initiatives from the 1992 Rio Conference onwardsare increasingly focusing attention on biologicaldiversity. The ‘Rio + 10’ conference at Johannesburg in2002, for example, endorsed the commitment to‘achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the rate ofbiodiversity loss at the global, regional and nationallevel’.

So there is a wide consensus that biodiversity isimportant and that its protection should be an urgentpriority for policy-makers. But that consensus cannoteffectively be translated into policy unless we have waysof measuring biodiversity. Only then can we monitor theimpact of attempts to protect it and thus know whetherour policies are having their intended consequences.

The measurement of biodiversity is not simply an issuefor specialist scientists. It is also relevant to policy-makers. Biodiversity is a complex, many-sided concept,and its measurement is equally complex and many-sided. Information about the matrix of measurementtools currently available is an essential pre-requisite tounderstanding the basic phenomenon, so it is important

that policy-makers should have access to suchinformation.

We were therefore delighted that the EnvironmentCommittee of the European Parliament asked us toprepare this briefing on biodiversity indicators. EASAC isestablished by the national science Academies of the EUMember States to enable them to collaborate with eachother in providing advice to European policy-makers.The national science Academies of Europe recognisethat the scope of their policy advisory functions extendsbeyond the national to cover also the European level,and policies related to biodiversity are a strong exampleof this.

The bulk of our report consists of a systematicdescription of 17 different indicators related toparticular aspects of biodiversity and an analysis of theircurrent and potential utility. The introductory chaptersaddress the concept of biodiversity and why it is nowsuch a topical issue. An annex summarises currentbiodiversity policies and initiatives. Key points arebrought together at the beginning of the report.

I should like to give my warmest thanks to ProfessorGeorgina Mace and her colleagues for their energy andprofessionalism in delivering this report, and doing sowithin three months. Since the group was drawn fromacross the European Union and all the members werevolunteers, giving their time freely in the midst of otherprofessional commitments, this represents a substantialeffort and augurs well for the cause of scientificcollaboration in support of European policy.

Professor David SpearmanChairman, EASAC

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1.1 Key points

(i) Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is important: itmatters to people and is an indispensable part of asustainable world. It describes the variety, quantityand distribution of the components of life whetherthey are species, ecosystems or genes.

(ii) Biodiversity can be measured: indicators andindexes are not perfect, but they are good enoughto show which way some of the key componentsof biodiversity are heading. The crucial issue indeveloping biodiversity indicators or indexes is tobe clear on the specific question about biodiversitythat the measuring system is designed to answer.In particular there are biodiversity indicators thatmeasure:· population trends· the extent of different habitats· trends in the status of threatened species· trends in the impacts of a specific pressure, for

example the effect of fishing on fish stocks· the coverage of protected areas, measuring the

total area of natural habitats under protection

(iii) Where it is being monitored, most measures ofbiodiversity show that it is in decline. Theexceptions tend to occur where intensivemanagement action is now reversing recentdeclines, for example through species recoveryplans, biodiversity action plans (BAPs) or inprotected areas.

(iv) The European Union has set the challenging targetof halting biodiversity loss by 2010, but since theindices/indicators needed for monitoring have onlyrecently been agreed it is currently difficult toknow if this is a sensible target or if it can or willbe achieved.

(v) There are indicators of biodiversity that could beused right away for reporting to the Spring Councilon Sustainable Development within the frameworkof the Lisbon Strategy. They are:· European Wild Bird Index (a population trend

measure)· Coverage of protected areas

(vi) For implementation by 2010, the population trendindex could be extended to include other well-studied taxa: mammals and butterflies forexample. In addition to these, there is a further setof indicators that could be used in reporting at the2010 target date for halting biodiversity decline.They are:· Extent of habitats, a development of the EU

CORINE Database

· The Red List index, which measures trends inthreatened species

· The Marine Trophic index, which measuresimpacts of fishing on fish stocks

(vii) Although considerable progress is being made atEuropean and International level in agreeing a setof indicators, problems remain. The problems havedelayed progress in agreeing and implementing asuite of indicators. In essence the problems fall intothree kinds:· Lack of clarity about what is meant by

biodiversity and therefore on how best tomeasure it. The term ‘biodiversity’ has become sowide in use that all available indices can seem tohave drawbacks.

· Lack of political commitment to biodiversitymonitoring in member states and an extendeddebate about cost effectiveness in relation to themonitoring of biodiversity. This is exacerbated bydifficulties associated with economic valuation ofbiodiversity and the services it provides.

· Gaps in knowledge and in data

We believe that these problems can be overcomeonce they are recognised and incorporated intothe process to develop and implement theindicators.

(viii) The IUCN Red List indicator should be immediatelyinvestigated for its potential to incorporate allspecies of Community interest, including thoselisted in the annexes to the Birds and HabitatsDirectives. Its relevance to species that are mostthreatened by extinction and to species on whichCommunity legislation has a particular emphasismake this a high priority indicator for furtherdevelopment.

(ix) Although these current indicators are undervigorous development, in the longer term we needindicators that match more closely the concerns ofEurope’s many and diverse communities. Theseshould be designed to measure biodiversity thatmatters to people and policy-makers in Europe.

(x) In summary, it is perfectly possible to startreporting on biodiversity, using currentlyavailable indicators and indexes for theSustainable Development Report to SpringCouncil. It would certainly be possible to usethe European Wild Bird/Farmland Bird Indexand an index based on the area underprotection. In the longer term other indicators,of threatened species, extent of habitats andimpacts of human pressure, are well on theirway.

1 Summary briefing

1.2 The EASAC process

This report has been prepared for a project groupsupported by EASAC. The membership of the group isgiven in Annex D. The report has been reviewed andapproved for publication by the Council & EASAC. Itwas commissioned by the Environment Commitee ofthe European Parliament.

During a visit to the European Parliament on 17September 2004, Peter Collins, the EASAC ExecutiveSecretary, and John Murlis, the Secretary of the projectgroup, met Officials and Members of the EnvironmentCommittee to confirm the scope of the work and thetimetable for the report. It was agreed that the workwould be in two main parts: a briefing for members ofthe Environment Committee and a more detailed reportfor members and advisors.

The project group held its first meeting in London on 23 September 2004 to agree a provisional structure forthe report and to assign writing tasks to members. At asecond meeting on 21 October 2004, the project groupreviewed the work to date, produced a definitive structurefor the report and developed outlines for the conclusionsand recommendations. The final report was submitted inthe European Parliament on 30 November 2004.

1.3 What is meant by biodiversity?

‘Biological diversity’, or biodiversity, means the variabilityamong living organisms that derives from all sourcesincluding terrestrial, marine and other aquaticecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which theyare part. This includes diversity within species (at agenetic level), between species and of ecosystems.

Biodiversity at each of these levels of complexity ischaracterised by:· Variety, the number of different types· Quantity, the number or total biomass of any type· Distribution, the extent and nature of geographic

spread of different types

In general terms, biodiversity conveys the biologicalrichness of planet Earth.

1.4 Why is it important?

At the most basic level, biodiversity is important as anelement of environmental sustainability.

We humans and our societies are completely dependenton an unknown number of species of animals, plants,fungi, and microbes that produce our food, substancesthat are needed for health care, and materials for clothing,manufacturing, construction and other purposes. We are

also dependent on species that provide indispensableecosystem functions, such as the biogeochemicalprocesses without which waste would accumulate andproductivity of ecosystems would decline. These productsand functions have become known as ecosystem services.The economic valuation of these services is a topic ofintense debate. Estimates exist on a wide range of scales,from the annual value to farmers of pollination services, tothe annual value of well forested water catchments to amajor city, and heroic attempts to estimate the annualglobal value of a number of specific ecosystem services.The estimates produced in these studies are impressive,rising from tens of thousands of Euros to billions of Eurosto about the global sum of gross national products.

Apart from these many direct and indirect benefits ofbiodiversity, humans place existence values onbiodiversity: that is, people value the existence ofparticular species or habitats, regardless of the servicesthey provide, because of the pleasure or meaning theyderive from them or the significance they have incultural terms. Biodiversity is an essential part ofhumanity’s natural and spiritual surroundings. Therefore,when a species disappears there is a feeling ofirreversible loss.

Where ecosystems provide essential services forhumanity, the existence of critical thresholds is ofparamount concern: an ecosystem may becomedisrupted when a critical amount of biodiversity hasbeen lost or a level of nutrient inputs exceeded. Thereare indeed well-defined extinction thresholds thatcharacterize the long-term persistence of populations.When a critical amount of habitat has been lost speciesmay decline to extinction rather abruptly.

1.5 Can biodiversity be measured?

Biodiversity it too complex to be fully quantified at thekinds of scale that are relevant to policy. However it isperfectly possible to characterise biodiversity throughthe use of surrogate measures and there is considerableexperience worldwide in the development andapplication of biodiversity indicators.

Biodiversity measurement is needed because ofwidespread concern about the loss of biodiversity, thegenerally inadequate nature of the information onbiodiversity currently available, the policy response tothe loss of biodiversity, including the EU target ofhalting the loss of biodiversity by 2010, and the need totake effective action in response to these policies. Thisrequires a much better knowledge of status and trendsin biodiversity, of the impact of the main drivers andpressures that determine biodiversity loss, and of thesuccess, or lack of success, of policies and practicesdesigned to conserve and/or restore biodiversity.

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This process is commonly referred to as biodiversityassessment, rather than biodiversity measurement,because the measurements are made to assess, forexample, the state of biodiversity in relation to one ormore of the following: a baseline, target, pressure orpolicy response.

1.6 What progress is being made at Europeanand global levels?

Following the adoption of the 2010 target at global,regional and EU levels, progress has been made inagreeing core sets of indicators for reporting and tosupport the achievement of the 2010 target. Globally,within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), eightbiodiversity indicators are considered ready for immediatetesting while another 13 require further development.

In the Pan-European region the Kyiv Resolution onbiodiversity calls for the development of a core set ofbiodiversity indicators to monitor progress in achievingthe European 2010 biodiversity target. A set, based onthe CBD indicators, is proposed for approval by theCouncil of the Pan-European biological and landscapeDiversity Strategy.

For the EU, a set of European biodiversity headlineindicators was adopted at the Malahide stakeholderconference ‘Biodiversity and the EU: Sustaining life,sustaining livelihoods’ in May 2004. The EuropeanParliament has expressed a particular interest inbiodiversity reporting, and the outgoing EuropeanEnvironment Commissioner Margot Wallström hasresponded positively.

At each level, then, there is progress in developing theindicators of biodiversity that will assess progresstowards the 2010 target of halting biodiversity decline.

1.7 What could be done now?

Our independent assessment of available indicatorssuggests that there is a range of indicators for whichthere is an established methodology, and for which dataexist. Several of these can be implemented immediately,in particular, the following biodiversity ‘state’ indicators:

· Measures of population trends. Foremost among theseis the Wild Bird Indicator, derived from annualbreeding bird surveys from 18 European countries,obtained through the Pan-European Common BirdMonitoring Scheme. The survey covers 24 birdscharacteristic of either woodland or agriculturalhabitats in Europe, selected by experts. These, andsimilar data sets, can immediately be used to examinetrends and provide comparisons between habitats,areas and management practices.

· Measures of habitat extent. The CORINE habitatclassification is established and the database from1990 is already being updated for 2000. Thisinformation could form the basis for an ongoingindicator reflecting the area and extent of ecosystemclasses, and the way that this is changing over time.Further work will be needed to turn this into anindicator. The reassessment will have to be completedand a methodology will have to be developed to derivea composite indicator from the many classes ofecosystem that CORINE contains.

· Measures of changes in threatened species. The trendtowards extinction is measured by the Red list index,and forms an indicator that is complementary to thepopulation trends index above. Many of theassessments of species extinction risk that underpinthis indicator exist, and where they do not existalready, there are networks in place to develop them.The methodology is already established.

· Measures of fishing impacts on marine fishes. TheMarine Trophic Index, which measures the changingstatus of fisheries catches, has been shown to be aneffective indicator of fishing pressure. It seems likelythat this indicator could be adapted for freshwaterexploitative fisheries too, thereby providing a means tobalance the terrestrial systems that dominate most ofthe other indicators.

There is also one measure of the policy response tobiodiversity loss that is available immediately:

· Coverage of protected areas. This information on theextent of protected areas in Europe is already availableand highly relevant.

This set of indicators provides information on some keydimensions of biodiversity, and already exists for the EUarea, or could be put together from existing initiatives.Importantly, these indicators are all also part of the setchosen by the CBD for their 2010 assessments. Hencewe recommend their immediate adoption andimplementation.

1.8 What is stopping it?

First, ‘Biodiversity’ has evolved into an umbrella conceptthat can include practically everything about the livingworld, from the genetic composition of populations tothe viability of particular populations to the structureand species richness of communities to the structure oftheir habitats to the functioning of ecosystems. It isimpossible to derive a simple and practical indicator thatwould reliably cover all these aspects simultaneously.Any suggested indicator can appear inadequate becauseit fails to reflect some particular aspect, and this aspectmay be particularly important to some particularcommunity, context or conservation concern.


Second, there has been insufficient political will totackle the key issues about preserving biodiversity,because of the common perception that doing so wouldprimarily mean additional costs and with the benefitsbeing less easy to define in monetary terms and toassign to particular interest groups.

Finally, there are certainly important gaps in data andknowledge that limit indicator development. Poorlyknown habitats and ecosystems, and poorly understooddynamics within natural systems can appear to beobstacles to progress. Lack of expertise on particulargroups of organisms and the decline in taxonomicexpertise has also limited some initiatives.

However, once the political will is there to stop thedecline in biodiversity, it is definitely possible forecologists and other scientists to deliver relatively simplemeasures and indicators of biodiversity that wouldwidely be considered as sensible approximations of thecomplex set of (ideal) indicators that would accuratelyreflect all possible aspects of biodiversity.

One particular way to address societal concerns wouldbe to define the biodiversity that communities want andneed for different purposes and to develop indicatorsthat reflect these values.

1.9 Is this a problem?

Yes. European targets are not backed at present by aneffective monitoring system. It is impossible to know iftargets are feasible (there is, for example, no agreedbaseline) nor what progress is being made to halt thedecline in biodiversity.

1.10 What further needs to be done to producea better framework for monitoring?

· Develop indicators that resonate with society’sconcerns. This will require studies to define thebiodiversity that communities want and need fordifferent purposes and the development of indicatorsthat reflect these values.

· Improve data: we need large-scale inventories and torealise the potential for using NGO inputs of expertiseand data. There is an urgent requirement for thedevelopment of common protocols for data collectionacross Europe.

· There are many initiatives in Europe; existing mechanismsfor European coordination need to be enhanced.

· Get the message across by putting at least onebiodiversity indicator in the in Structure Indicators forreporting to Spring Council.

· More support is needed for scientific programmesaimed at development of biodiversity indicators.

· Higher level of commitment for research. Settingbiodiversity in a priority framework for Europeanresearch funding. There is now a major opportunity todo this in the seventh framework programme.

1.11 Recommendations

(i) Adopt the following indicators now:· European Wild Birds Index· Extent of protected areas

(ii) Test the following indicators now:· Corine Habitat Classification· The Red List of threatened species · The Marine Trophic Index

(iii) In our view these would make adequate proxymeasures for current policy purposes, notably theassessment of the 2010 targets.

(iv) The questions being asked must be sharpened. Inparticular, more effort should be made to developan understanding of the values attached tobiodiversity by different public constituencies inEurope and to build indicators that are matched tothese public concerns.

(v) The European Parliament should comment to theCommission that the two indicators/indexes thatare ready now should be included in thesustainable development report to the SpringCouncil.

(vi) Encourage on DG Research of the EuropeanCommission to include the development,implementation and further refinement ofbiodiversity indicators explicitly within theframework of the European Union’s SeventhFramework Programme.

(vii) Consider how the expertise and data of NGOs canbe mobilised in support of European biodiversityindicators.

(viii) Support the work of European coordinationinitiatives.



2 Introduction

2.1 What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity is a common contraction of ‘biologicaldiversity’. Strictly speaking, according to the Conventionon Biological Diversity, ‘Biological diversity’ means thevariability among living organisms from all sourcesincluding, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquaticecosystems and the ecological complexes of which theyare part. This includes diversity within species, betweenspecies and of ecosystems. In more general terms,biodiversity conveys the biological richness of planetEarth. It is the outcome of the long and elaborateprocess of evolution of life and includes all the productsof that history, most of which is long gone.Contemporary species share common ancestors andrepresent the ability of life on Earth to renew andreform in the face of continuing environmental change.The populations of different species have unique andspecial adaptations to their place in the web of life, andpeople too are part of that web.

In the face of this elaborate complexity, biodiversity ismost commonly measured at these three levels:· Genes· Species· Ecosystems

At each of these levels measures may represent one ofany of the following:

· Variety, reflecting the number of different types. Forexample, this could refer to different species or genes,such as how many bird species persist in an area, orhow many varieties of a genetic crop strain are inproduction.

· Quantity, reflecting how much there is of any onetype. For example this might include the populationsize of a species in a particular area, or the biomass ofa fish species exploited by a fishery.

· Distribution, reflecting where that attribute ofbiodiversity is located. For example, having all the world’spollinators present but only in a single location will notmeet the needs of the plants that depend upon them.

In practice the relevant measure and attribute dependsupon the role being assessed. Broadly speaking, andaccording to our present level of understanding,variability is more significant at the genetic level and atthe species level, whereas quantity and distribution aremore significant at the population and ecosystem levels.For most ecosystem services, local loss of biodiversity ismost significant; but for future option values, existencevalues and for certain services such as genetic variabilityand bioprospecting, global loss is the primaryconsideration.

Biodiversity conservation is often and inappropriatelyequated with the prevention of species extinction at aglobal level. This approach – ie the loss of one speciesfrom the biosphere – has a strong emotional appeal, butmisses the important fact that losses of species orpopulations at local level are often more significant. Atlocal levels they have been playing some ecological (orsocial) role.

2.2 Biodiversity in Europe

In pre-agricultural times most of the lowlands of Europewere covered in closed or semi-closed forest orappeared as a park-like half-open forest (Vera, 2000).Whatever its original nature, the advent of agriculturedramatically changed vegetation patterns over much ofthe Continent, and the economic and technologicalrevolutions starting towards the end of the nineteenthcentury have further changed the face of most ofEurope. Now almost all areas are directly affected byhuman activities. In the North West, in areas with thehighest economic development and human populationdensity, natural ecosystems have mostly been lost andpersist only as small and marginal zones amidst theextensive areas dominated by agriculture and urbandevelopment. Central and Eastern Europe, for example,still contain areas of natural and semi-natural habitats.The Mediterranean region retains a range of traditionalagricultural and pastoral landscapes, with a richbiodiversity both in the mainland and islands (GarciaNovo 2003). For the most part, however, the pattern isof change. Here we have the opportunity to learn fromthe past and manage economic development moresustainably.

Compared to many areas of the world, especially thetropics, biodiversity in Europe is relatively low in overallrichness. Yet within the continent many diverse habitatsand species assemblages are found, sometimesrestricted to particular small areas. On a global scale, theMediterranean is the one eco-region that extends intoEurope that is recognised as an area of exceptionalspecies richness and threat (Myers et al 2000). Thespatial pattern of biodiversity variation across Europe, aproduct of gradients in our climate, landforms andgeology, and shaped by the rather recent glacialepisodes, is the backdrop to cultural and economicdevelopment. Maintaining these spatial patterns is assignificant as preserving the overall diversity of speciesand habitats.

This rich diversity is difficult to summarise. But considerthe significance for people and local resources ofEurope’s wetlands, stretching from the sub arctic to theMediterranean, and the extensive and diverse coastlinesincluding marine areas, sand dunes, cliffs and coastal

meadows. Heathlands, a product of human activitiesthousands of years ago, are valued for their distinctivefauna and flora, and for their cultural landscapes. Yetboth are extremely vulnerable to changingenvironmental conditions and intrusion by humanurban, recreational and transport infrastructures. Onlyabout 2% of Europe’s forest cover is natural, andsustainable management of forested areas remains achallenge across the continent. The natural and semi-natural grasslands, a distinctive European habitatresulting from extensive agricultural practices of the pastare outstanding for their species richness, especially forflowering plants and invertebrates. These areas have

been greatly impacted by intensive agriculture,husbandry and urbanisation, and face further threatsfrom land drainage, re-afforestation and de-afforestation, fertilizer usage and land abandonment.Some of the most distinctive and diverse Europeanhabitats are the mountainous areas (see Figure 1). Herethe altitudinal zoning is associated with many distinctspecies and habitats, yet these areas too are subject to arange of complex challenges, originally from agriculturaland pastoral practices, and increasingly today as a resultof competing recreational uses. Climate change isemerging as a potential major threat to mountain areas.


Figure 1 Map of species richness

Plot of combined records from atlas data for vascular plants, amphibians, reptiles, breeding birds and mammalsamong 50x50 km grid cells (total 3143 species, 2435 grid cells). Species richness counts are divided into 33 colour-scale classes (shown right) of approximately equal size by numbers of grid cells, with maximum richness shown inred and minimum richness in light blue. This option for an equal-frequency colour scale is used to maximizegeographical differentiation of regions within a map. Svalbard and the Azores are shown displaced relative to themainland and in boxes. (Source: WORLDMAP)


2.3 Why does it matter?

We humans and our societies are completely dependenton an unknown number of species of animals, plants,fungi, and microbes that produce our food, substancesthat are needed for health care, materials for clothing,manufacturing, construction and other purposes. Weare also dependent on species that provideindispensable ecosystem functions, such asbiogeochemical circulation of essential elements,without which waste would accumulate andproductivity of ecosystems would decline. Theseproducts and functions are what have become knownas ecosystem services (MA 2003, Daily 1997). Apartfrom these many direct and indirect benefits ofbiodiversity, people place existence values onbiodiversity, that is they value the existence of particularspecies or habitats independently of the ecosystemservices they provide (Balvanera et al 2001, Goulder andKennedy 1997). Biodiversity is an essential part ofhumanity’s natural and spiritual surroundings. Therefore,when a species disappears there is a feeling ofirreversible loss that is felt by contemporary and futuregenerations. Some authors will even go further andargue that biodiversity has an intrinsic value that cannotbe analyzed from an utilitarian or anthropocentric pointof view (Rosa 2004).

2.3.1 Biodiversity and ecosystem services

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment classifiesecosystem services in four broad categories (Figure 2).Provisioning services are the products obtained fromecosystems such as food, timber and biochemicalresources (eg medical substances). Regulating servicesare the benefits obtained from the regulation ofecosystem processes such as carbon sequestration andrun-off regulation. Cultural services are the nonmaterialbenefits obtained from ecosystems such as recreation(eg bird watching) and the cultural heritage associatedwith traditional or natural systems. Finally, supportingservices are the services necessary for the production ofall the other services, including soil formation, primaryproductivity and keeping the oxygen concentration ofthe atmosphere at a steady level.

Different components of biodiversity provide differentecosystem services. Consider for example the servicesprovided by different ecosystems in a river basin (Heal etal 2001). A forest provides timber, water purificationand flood control, farmlands provide food and wetlandsprovide flood control, water purification and recreation.Some services are associated with species diversity whileother services are associated with the abundance ofparticular species. For instance, primary productivityincreases with species richness (Tilman 2001, Hector1999), and ecosystem resilience and stability can behighly affected by species loss (McCann 2000, Loreau etal 2001, Tilman and Downing 1994). In contrast, timberproduction depends on the abundance and distributionof highly-valued or productive timber species.

The existence of critical thresholds in ecosystems is ofparamount concern: an ecosystem may becomedisrupted when a critical amount of biodiversity hasbeen lost or a level of nutrient inputs exceeded. Thereare indeed well-defined extinction thresholds thatcharacterize the long-term persistence of populations.When a critical amount of habitat has been lost speciesmay plummet to extinction abruptly. The precautionaryprinciple suggests that biodiversity losses should beminimized to minimize the risk of sudden loss ofstability and ecosystem function.

Several studies have assessed the economic value ofecosystem services. For instance, pollination services fromtwo forest fragments of a few dozen hectares were valuedin approximately 50,000 per year for one Costa Ricanfarm (Ricketts et al 2004). The acquisition of forest in theCatskills watershed area and other protection efforts hassaved New York City around $5 billion, based on theestimated cost of the alternative, a filtration water plant(Salzman et al 2001). An assessment of the value of 17ecosystem services, including provisioning, regulating,cultural and supporting services, estimated the annualvalue of those services at the biosphere scale at US$16-54trillion (Constanza et al 1997), which is of the same orderof magnitude as the global gross national product.Another global assessment found that in many instancesthe overall benefit from ecosystem services of protectingremaining natural habitats is at least 100 times greaterthan conversion to human-dominated uses (Balmford et al2002).

One may ask how much biodiversity can we afford toloose before it affects the quality of our lives? Though itis clear that ecosystem functioning is not equallyaffected by all species, ecologists have no way of reliablypredicting which species are of no value now and in thefuture. History shows that new utilitarian values ofbiodiversity are constantly discovered, and species thatwere previously thought to be of no benefit at all haveturned out to provide significant or even crucialbenefits. These are also known as option values. Takinginto account that the cost of protecting biodiversity atan adequate level is modest in comparison with manyother expenses, protection of biodiversity is rightly seenas an essential component of sustainable development.

2.3.2 Existence and intrinsic values ofbiodiversity

Existence values of biodiversity can be seen as a culturalservice provided by ecosystems. Existence values areoften assessed by the Contingent Valuation Method.This method consists in asking a sample of individualstheir willingness to pay for a given change not to occur,for instance the willingness to pay to protect a speciesfrom extinction. For instance, the existence value lostwith Exxon Valdez oil spill was estimated to be $2.75billion for the English-speaking households in the USA(Perman et al 2003). While the reliability of valuesestimated by Contingent Valuation has been underdebate (Perman et al 2003), there is much evidence forexistence values that people place on emblematicspecies or habitats. Environmental NGOs, natural historybooks, and nature television channels, are among thestrongest manifestations of existence values placed onbiodiversity by people at large. Another non-use valueassociated with biodiversity is option-values, the

premium that an individual is willing to pay toguarantee that biodiversity will be available for futureuse by that individual, and bequest values, the valuethat an individual ascribes to preserving biodiversity forfuture generations (Bawa and Gadgil 1997).

In contrast to the utilitarian view of the world expressedabove, Kantianism defends some things as pricelessbecause they have an intrinsic value: ‘Everything has aprice or dignity. Whatever has a price can be replacedby something else as its equivalent; on the other hand,whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of noequivalent, has a dignity’ (Kant 1959). Many culturesand religions consider that biodiversity has an intrinsicvalue (MA 2003). For instance, in the Judeo-Christiantradition, plants and animals are creatures of God, andSt. Francis of Assisi taught universal brotherhood withall animals and plants. In the past few decades, severalbio-ethicists have called for the need to consider bothanthropocentric and biocentric perspectives of theconservation of nature (Rosa 2004, Goulder andKennedy 1997). In the anthropocentric perspectives,only the interests of humans are important. Thisperspective is well represented in classical utilitarianismwhere aggregate human happiness is the goal of socialpolicy (MA 2003). In the biocentric perspective all livingcreatures have interests and count independently oftheir interest for humans. Intrinsic values are a keycomponent of the biocentric perspective.

One of the ethical issues raised is whether humans havethe right to exterminate other species with whom weshare the Biosphere. The diversity of life on Earth is theresult of over 3 billion years of evolution. Humans are thespecies with largest impacts on biodiversity and at thesame time are the only species aware of the consequencesof their decisions on the fate of other species.


Figure 2 A classification of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity (MA 2003)

Provisioning services Regulating services Cultural servicesProducts obtained Benefits obtained Nonmaterialfrom ecosystems from regulation of benefits obtained

ecosystem processes from ecosystems

· Food · Climate regulation · Spiritual and religious· Fresh water · Disease regulation · Recreation and ecotourism· Fuelwood · Water regulation · Aesthetic· Fiber · Water purification · Inspirational· Biochemicals · Pollination · Educational· Genetic resources · Sense of place

· Cultural heritage

Supporting servicesServices necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services

· Soil formation · Nutrient cycling · Primary production


2.4 What is happening to biodiversity?

Habitats and ecosystems on Earth have always been in astate of change, which has led to evolutionary changesin the species and caused extinctions of speciesthroughout the history of life. The rate of change hasbeen very slow, excepting some catastrophic eventssuch as the impact of asteroids that have collided withour planet. The long-term trend for the past 500 millionyears has been towards greater diversity.

The natural rate of species extinctions can be calculatedfor mammals, for which there exist comprehensive fossildata. The lifetime of mammalian species in the fossilrecord is roughly 2 million years, hence we wouldexpect one extinction per species in two million years.Currently there exist about 5000 species of mammals,which puts the predicted natural rate of extinctions atone species per 400 years. In reality, about 50 mammalspecies have gone extinct in the past 100 years, andthus the current rate of extinctions is about 200 timeshigher than the natural rate. Other estimates based onother data suggest that the current extinction rate is100 to 1000 times greater than the natural rate, and

the rate of extinctions is accelerating (May et al 1995).For example, bird extinctions have been nearly twice asfrequent in the past 100 years as in 1600-1900(Groombridge 1992). The extinction rate will furtheraccelerate rapidly in this century if the pressures fromthe main drivers of biodiversity loss are not reduced.

Globally, the best-known groups of animals aremammals and birds, of which 24% and 12%respectively are extinct, threatened, or near-threatened(IUCN 2003, http://www.redlist.org). At the Europeanlevel 12% of the 576 diurnal butterfly species known tooccur in Europe are regarded as threatened (Van Swaay& Warren, 1999). Our knowledge is much more limitedabout other groups of species, but their level of threatappears to be even higher. Among the species ofreptiles, amphibians, fishes, and plants for whichsufficient data are available to allow the assessment(<10% of all species), 40 to 70% of the species havebeen classified as extinct, threatened, or near-threatened(IUCN 2003, http://www.redlist.org). Figure 3 shows thenumbers of globally critically endangered, endangered,and vulnerable species of vertebrates that occur inEurope. There are altogether 260 such species in Europe.

Figure 3 Numbers of critically endangered (extremely high risk of extinction in immediate future),endangered (very high risk of extinction in near future), and vulnerable (high risk ofextinction in medium-term future) species of vertebrates in Europe (Source: GEO-3 2002)

Global extinctions are irreversible and hence mostharmful for the intrinsic value and existence values ofbiodiversity, while local and national deterioration ofbiodiversity damages the many direct and indirectbenefits that nations derive from species andecosystems. It is hence not sufficient to work towardsreducing the global rate of extinctions, it is important tohalt the decline of biodiversity at local and national

scales. Table 1 describes the current level of threat tothe exceptionally well known fauna and flora of Finlandin the boreal region in northern Europe, and to the lesswell-known fauna and flora of Portugal in southernEurope. These figures indicate that 19% of all thespecies in Finland are nationally extinct, threatened, ornear-threatened, while the corresponding figure forvertebrates, butterflies, and bryophytes in Portugal is

60

50

40

30

20

10

0mammals birds reptiles amphibians fishes


31% (for the other species in Portugal no assessmenthas been made so far). Comparable or even higherfigures are likely to apply to most European countries.

The above figures reveal that biodiversity is lost at allscales, from local to global, and that the level of threatpreceding complete loss appears to be relatively uniformacross different groups of species (Table 1). The similarityacross spatial scales and different kinds of organisms islikely to reflect the fact that the major driver of decliningbiodiversity locally, nationally, and globally is habitat lossand fragmentation, which occurs everywhere andaffects all groups of animals, plants, and fungi. Loss andfragmentation of natural habitats can be attributed toagriculture, forestry, urbanization, construction ofinfrastructure, and tourism (Delbaere 1998). Forinstance, by 1950 only about 30% of theMediterranean forest biome remained, and since thenan additional 2.5% has been lost (Mace et al 2005).Even higher rates of conversion of forest occur in thetropical biomes, where current annual rates of forestloss are about 0.6-0.8% (Achard et al, 2002; FAO,2001). In some parts of Europe the trend in forest cover

has been different. For instance, in Portugal forest coverhas increased by more than 50% over the last century(Pereira et al, in press). Nevertheless, the increase inforest cover is essentially due to plantations ofmonocultures of pine and eucalyptus, which have lowbiodiversity (Pereira et al, in press). In the boreal forestregion in northern Europe, forest cover is high and notdeclining, but intensive forestry has turned naturalforests into intensively managed production forests witheven-aged stands of single tree species. Such forestslose most of the ecologically specialized species ofanimals and plants (Hanski 2000). The disappearance ofwetlands over the last century in Europe has beendramatic, ranging from 60% in Denmark to 90% inBulgaria (EEA 2003). Another important changeoccurring in Europe is the decrease of low-intensityfarming systems, which supports high level ofbiodiversity (Bignal et al, 1996; EEA, 2004a). Forinstance, in Finland the loss of habitats associated withtraditional low-intensity agriculture is the second mostimportant cause of threat to biodiversity followingforestry (Rassi et al 2001).

Table 1 Nationally extinct (EXT), threatened (THR), and near-threatened (NTHR) species of plants,animals, and fungi in Finland and Portugal

Finland Portugal

EXT THR NTHR EXT THR NTHR

Vertebrates 2.3% 14.5% 14.0% 0.2% 11.7% 3.6%Invertebrates/butterflies* 1.2% 8.8% 6.7% - 28.0% 24.2%Vascular plants 0.6% 14.9% 7.7%Spore plants/bryophytes* 2.8% 15.8% 12.0% 13.8% 27.6% 45.1%Fungi 1.0% 9.3% 5.8%

Total 1.4% 10.4% 7.4% 2.6% 15.8% 12.7%

Note: Sufficient data to assess the level of threat were available for 35% of the estimated total of 43 000 species inFinland, and for 49% of the 1751 species in the assessed taxa in Portugal. The vast majority of species inPortugal belong to taxa that were not assessed.

* For Finland the figures in the table are for invertebrates and spore plants, for Portugal the figures are forbutterflies and bryophytes.

Sources for Finland: Rassi et al (2001). Sources for Portugal: (1) Almeida, P.R. et al (eds.), in preparation: LivroVermelho dos Vertebrados de Portugal - Revisão. Instituto da Conservação da Natureza, Lisboa. (2) Magalhães, F.and L. Rogado (eds.), 1993: Livro Vermelho dos Vertebrados de Portugal: Peixes Marinhos e Estuarinos. Vol. 3.Serviço Nacional de Parques, Reservas e Conservação da Natureza, Lisboa, 146 pp. (3) Maravalhas, E. (ed), 2003, AsBorboletas de Portugal. Vento Norte, Lisboa, 455 pp.(4) Sérgio, C., C. Casa, M. Brugués and R.M. Cros. 1994. ListaVermelha dos Briófitos da Península Ibérica. Museu, Laboratório e Jardim Botânico da Universidade de Lisboa,Instituto da Conservação da Natureza. Lisboa.


Biodiversity loss also occurs through climate change,impact of invasive species, harvesting and persecution.Many of these factors are more specific to certaingroups of species, and their impact variesgeographically. Climate change has already causedsignificant changes in the geographical distribution ofspecies (Parmesan et al 1999; EEA, 2004b) and in theirseasonal occurrence (Parmesan and Yohe 2003, Root etal 2003). The predicted change in average globaltemperature by the year 2050 will cause such greatchanges in the habitats and ecosystems that anestimated 15 to 37% of species on Earth will becomeendangered (Thomas et al 2004a). No similar analysishas been carried out for Europe, but a comparable levelof threat can be expected especially to those speciesthat occur in distinct habitats on mountains and atextreme latitudes, from where the habitats and thespecies associated with these habitats cannot move toanywhere. Climate change will have particularly harmfuleffects anywhere where natural habitats have becomehighly fragmented, which hinders the movement ofspecies’ geographical ranges (Warren et al 2001).

Considering the temporal scale of biodiversity loss, itshould be noted that populations and species respondto environmental changes with a characteristic time lag,and this time lag is likely to be long (decades or evencenturies) at large spatial scales (Sala et al 2005).Therefore the full impact of current environmentalchanges will not be seen until some time in the future(Hanski and Ovaskainen 2002). This observation has theimportant corollary that we are likely to underestimatethe long-term impact of habitat loss and otherenvironmental changes to biodiversity, because we donot observe the changes in biodiversity immediately.Both the dynamics of biodiversity loss and the dynamicsof climate change exhibit relatively slow response time.

2.5 The need for measurement andassessment

The measurement of biodiversity is needed because ofwidespread concern about the loss of biodiversity, thegenerally poor level of information on biodiversitycurrently available, the policy response to the loss ofbiodiversity, including policies with targets that obligeEU Member States and signatories to the CBD to halt orsignificantly reduce the loss of biodiversity by 2010, andthe need to take effective action in response to thesepolicies. This requires a much better knowledge ofstatus and trends in biodiversity, of the impact of themain drivers and pressures that determine biodiversityloss, and of the success, or lack of success, of policiesand practices designed to conserve and/or restorebiodiversity.

This process is commonly referred to as biodiversityassessment, rather than biodiversity measurement,because the measurements are made to assess, for

example, the state of biodiversity in relation to one ormore of the following: a baseline, target, pressure orpolicy response.

Biodiversity assessment can only be done throughindicators: biodiversity is too complex to be fullyquantified at scales that are policy relevant. Complex,time-consuming approaches to biodiversity assessmentalso fail to deliver information quickly enough to aiddecision-making by policy makers and otherstakeholders.

Baseline values (for biodiversity) are difficult to set. Weknow very little about even recent trends in theabundance of most species apart from some insects inrestricted parts of Europe (eg Southwood et al 2003)and, more generally, birds (eg BirdLife International2004a). Information on habitat change is better:detailed maps of potential vegetation exist for Europe,some of them very detailed (Bohn 1995, Larsson et al2001). However, these maps ignore evidence ofsignificant shifts in the distribution of forest habitatsfrom the pollen record (eg Bradshaw et al 2000). Thepollen record also shows marked changes in plantspecies richness and composition (eg Hannon et al2000). Consequently, the choice of baseline may be asmuch a political as an ecological decision. However, inthe face of ecological uncertainty, it may be better toadopt a pragmatic approach and to set the conditions atthe start of a monitoring programme or at the year aninternational treaty came into force as a baseline.

Although the definition of biodiversity baselines isproblematical, it has not prevented the establishment ofgeneral and specific targets for biodiversity. In the UK,for example, targets for species and habitat action planshave been established. These targets rarely referexplicitly to a specified baseline but neverthelessimplicitly relate to knowledge of, or assumptionsconcerning, historical trends in biodiversity. The issue ofbaselines is discussed in the CBD paperUNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/5/12.

Biodiversity indicators must supply significant/meaningfulinformation to policymakers and others. Forpolicymakers in general this information should providean indication of how effective policy is – a lever fortaking measures. The information must, therefore, beable to indicate cause-effect relationships and provide areliable trigger for action. For high-level policymakersthe information should provide a broad indication of thelevel of overall biodiversity – an indicator, index or proxymeasure to bring the message across. The informationmust, therefore, bring across a message bycommunicating complex issues in simple terms. Forother stakeholders the amount of information necessaryvaries according to the needs.

Information on status and trends in biodiversity isconfounded by natural variation in the abundance of

species, habitat succession and disturbance. Markedsudden change in the abundance of species may be ofno long-term significance, but a long-term decline isclearly a cause for concern. Expert interpretation ofindicator trends is therefore critical. The State of theUK’s Birds and Pan-European Common Bird Index givegood examples of meaningful presentation of indicatortrends (eg Easton et al 2004, BirdLife International,2004b).

Information on biodiversity is usually collected locallybut biodiversity indicators report trends at local,national or international scales and are used in supportof policies at all these scales. The level of detail andaccuracy of policies increase from the global to thelocal scale and so does the level of detail in themeasurement of biodiversity: for example, themanagement of a NATURA 2000 site will requiredetailed assessments of biodiversity. It is impossible tobase policies at national level on such detailedassessments: aggregation of information collected atlocal scales or the collection of less complexinformation at national scales is necessary to supportnational and international policies. Aggregation of datato wider geographical scales may also help to solve theproblem that natural variation in biodiversity maycreate misleading results, although this conclusion, inpart, assumes that natural drivers act locally, ratherthan regionally, and this is clearly not always the case(Liebhold and Kamata 2000). However, aggregation ofinformation may also mask significant changes inbiodiversity at local scales.

2.6 Drivers of change

Drivers of change are the causal processes drivingbiodiversity change within Europe. Most importanttrends affecting Europe’s biodiversity are due toagriculture, forestry, urbanization, infrastructuredevelopment and tourism (EEA 1998). Climate change isa more recently recognised driver that may haveparticularly significant consequences for northern, highaltitude, coastal areas and for species with veryrestricted ranges and limits to dispersal.

Delbaere (1998) provides the following overview.

(i) Agriculture. The polarization of Europe intoregions of intensive agricultural production andregions where the land is being abandoned is amajor issue. The intensification of agricultureinvolves changes in crops, rotation rates, andgrazing coverage and intensity. In the Central andEastern European region in particular, changes infarm structure – privatization and an increase inscale – have a considerable impact on biologicaland landscape diversity. Abandonment is a majorproblem in the Less Favoured Areas (areas withpoor soil and/or climate conditions), which are

found mainly in the Mediterranean region, Ireland,Scotland and the Nordic countries (Baldock et al,1996).

Although the primary objective of agriculturalpolicies is still to raise yields, the rate of use ofinorganic fertilizers and pesticides has decreasedduring the last decade, particularly in WesternEurope. During the same period organic farminghas expanded to cover about 6% of theagricultural land in the EU in 1995; and 10% to15% of the arable land area has been broughtunder the EU set-aside regulation. Agricultural landin regions that in the past were farmed lessintensively, because of the climate, soil oreconomic conditions, is now being abandoned. Insome regions (eg mountains) this leads to reducedbiodiversity, the impacts being more pronounced inareas where small-scale traditional farmingmethods predominate.

(ii) Forestry. The overall forest cover in Europe isincreasing, but only a very limited percentage ofEurope’s forests retain some natural values. Manyforests are managed primarily for the productionof timber, but environmental concerns areincreasingly being taken into account throughsustainable forest management and certificationschemes for environmentally sound timberproduction. These practices are mostlyconcentrated in Western and Northern Europe. Inthe Mediterranean region afforestation with exoticspecies is increasingly common and has adeleterious effect on biodiversity. TheMediterranean and Eastern European region arealso confronted by the impacts of forest fires, mostof which have non-natural causes.

(iii) Urbanization and infrastructure. Urbandevelopment and new infrastructure have a directimpact on habitat coverage and coherence, speciespopulations and landscapes. The urban populationin Europe has continued to increase and Europeancities continue to show signs of environmentalstress in the form of poor air quality, excessivenoise, traffic congestion and loss of green space.All these have a direct or indirect effect on animaland plant populations, weakening or driving themout. As regards urbanization the growing interestin Local Agenda 21 being shown by Europeancities is a positive development. The expansion ofthe Trans-European transport networks, inparticular, is a major concern. Habitat destruction,habitat fragmentation, and barrier effects aredirect impacts that lead to the isolation orextinction of populations. Indirect impacts includenoise and light disturbance, emissions of air-bornepollutants and pollution from run-off. A positivedevelopment is the implementation ofenvironmental impact assessments as a standard



procedure in Europe, and the application ofmitigation measures such as fauna passages (EEA,1998).

(iv) Tourism. With over 60 million tourist arrivals peryear (CIPRA, 1998) the Alps are one of the mostheavily affected tourist destinations in Europe.Another region clearly under high pressure fromtourism is the Mediterranean coast; but otherEuropean regions, particularly now in EasternEurope, are also harmed by direct and indirectimpacts of the tourism industry (construction ofinfrastructure, increased consumption of naturalresources and increased pollution, high levels ofdisturbance). Tourism is likely to grow in Europe,and the World Tourism Organization foresees anincrease of 3% per year in tourism arrivals inEurope in the next two decades. Fortunately, themajor international tourist organizations areincreasingly aware of their responsibilities andpromote ecotourism and other methods ofsustainable tourism, and in various regions projectsto balance the needs of tourism and natureconservation are being implemented.

Most of the driving forces described here are related toanother indirect driving force, that of climate changeresulting from higher emissions from agriculture,industry and transport and from an increase in builtarea.

2.7 Progress in developing indicators

Following the adoption of the 2010 target at variouslevels (see Annex B for an overview of policydevelopment), progress has been made in agreeing coresets of indicators to report and help achieve the 2010target. The key sets that have been agreed are brieflydescribed below. Annex B describes in more detail someof the initiatives towards implementing biodiversityindicators.

The Convention on Biological Diversity: the 7th

Conference of the Parties (COP7) adopted in its DecisionVII/30 a framework to:· facilitate the assessment of progress towards the 2010

target and communication of this assessment;· promote coherence among the programmes of work

of the Convention;· provide a flexible framework within which national

and regional targets may be set, and indicatorsidentified.

Eight indicators were considered ready for immediatetesting while another 13 indicators required furtherdevelopment (see Annex B).

For the Pan-European region the Kyiv Resolution on

biodiversity calls for the development of a core set ofbiodiversity indicators to monitor progress in achievingthe European 2010 biodiversity target. A set, based onthe CBD indicators, is proposed for approval by theCouncil of the Pan-European biological and landscapeDiversity Strategy.

For the EU level a set of European biodiversity headlineindicators was adopted at the Malahide stakeholderconference ‘Biodiversity and the EU: Sustaining life,sustaining livelihoods’ in May 2004, and subsequentlyendorsed by the European Environment Council in June2004.

2.8 Why has it been so difficult to makeprogress?

Despite the popular appeal of biodiversity, theabundance of information, and the wealth of policyinitiatives, progress in developing and agreeing a set ofbiodiversity indicators has been limited. There areseveral good reasons why progress has been limited,and recognising what these are may be an importantstep towards overcoming the obstacles of the past.

First, biodiversity encompasses everything about theliving world, from the genetic composition ofpopulations to the viability of particular populations tothe structure and species richness of communities to thestructure of their habitats and the functioning ofecosystems. It is impossible to derive a simple andpractical indicator that would reliably cover all theseaspects simultaneously. Any suggested indicator cantherefore appear inadequate because it fails to reflectsome particular aspect, and this aspect may beparticularly important to some particular community,context or conservation concern.

A way forward is to appreciate that the termbiodiversity, and hence measures to reflect its status, israther more equivalent to topics such as ‘the economy’or ‘climate’. Then it becomes clear that there aremultiple potential measures. The best measure dependsthen on the context, but there are many alternativesfrom which the measure of choice should be drawn.Biodiversity measures and indicators, therefore, are notsimply going to appear out of the extensive data andinformation that exists. Ideally, they will need to bedefined and agreed once the issue they are informinghas been specified. In essence the search for generalbiodiversity indicators is going to be frustrated, just as asingle measure of climate (eg average temperature,average rainfall) would never tell the whole story andwould go only some way towards meeting needs forunderstanding change. However, once it is clear whatthe measure needs to address and to what questions itwill provide answers, development of simple indicatorsbecomes feasible.

Second, there may have been insufficient political will totackle the key issues about conserving biodiversity,because of the common perception that doing so wouldprimarily mean additional costs and with the benefitsbeing less easy to define in monetary terms and toassign to particular interest groups. To many peoplebiodiversity means the number of wild species. Then itseems that it will be assessed and managedindependently, and conflict with related issues to dowith land use, wildlife management, agriculture,fisheries and forestry. Yet these are not independent.Biodiversity cannot be separated from the naturalsystems that underpin resources and services to people.A possible way forward is to recognise the biodiversitythat communities want and need for different purposes(see section 1.3) and favour the use and development ofindicators that reflect these values.

Finally, there are certainly important gaps in data andknowledge that have limited, and will continue to limit,indicator development. Poorly known habitats andecosystems, and poorly understood dynamics withinnatural systems, can appear to be obstacles to progress.Lack of expertise on particular groups of organisms andthe decline in taxonomic expertise has also limited someinitiatives. However, if and when the political will isthere to stop the decline in biodiversity, it is definitelypossible for ecologists and other scientists to come upwith relatively simple measures and indicators ofbiodiversity that would widely be considered as sensibleapproximations of the complex set of (ideal) indicatorsthat would accurately reflect all possible aspects ofbiodiversity.


Drawing on the outline in section 1, and the assessmentof available indicators in Annex A, we summarise ourconclusions in this section. Given the short time before2010, some steps will need to be taken very soon if weare to have indicators in place to measure progressagainst the target. Hence we first make somerecommendations for immediate actions. Recognisingthat these actions, while they are adequate, may proveto be less than ideal over the long term, we then alsomake some recommendations for actions to be takennow to allow better, more efficient and more relevantindicators to be in place after 2010.

3.1 Immediate and short term – what isneeded to have indicators in place toassess progress against the 2010 target

This report is timely, since there is now substantialprogress to report resulting from the conclusions of theMalahide meeting (Annex B). The set of indicatorsreported there, which is assessed in Annex A, wassubsequently considered by the European EnvironmentCouncil in June 2004. The Council welcomed the ‘firstset of headline biodiversity indicators’ as outlined inAnnex 1 to the ‘Message from Malahide’ and urged theCommission ‘further to develop, test and finalise this setby 2006, having regard to their evolving nature’.

In 2004, the Implementing European BiodiversityIndicators 2010 Coordinating Group was established toundertake this development and testing. It is led by theEEA, with support from UNEP-WCMC and ECNC, andinvolves experts from across Europe. This initiative seemsvery timely and appropriate, and should be welcomedand supported by all. Clearly, given the challengesinvolved, we believe that mechanisms to supportongoing scientific input from a broad community acrossEurope are crucial.

Our independent assessment of the available indicators(Annex A) suggests that there is a range of indicators forwhich the methodology has been established, and forwhich data exist. Several of these can be implementedimmediately. In particular, we note the importantbiodiversity ‘state’ indicators under the following broadkinds of measures that are available.

1 Measures of population trends. Many populationtrend data are available, both from the publishedliterature and from existing monitoringprogrammes. Such data form the basis for theLiving Planet Index (LPI). For immediate application,it will be preferable to focus on the indicators thatare already established from good data andmethods. Foremost among these is the Wild BirdIndicator is derived from annually operated

breeding bird surveys spanning different periodsfrom 18 European countries, obtained through thePan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme.Experts selected 24 birds characteristic of eitherwoodland or agricultural habitats in Europe. These,and similar data sets, can immediately be used toexamine trends and are informative aboutcomparisons between habitats, areas andmanagement practices.

2 Measures of habitat extent. The CORINE habitatclassification (EEA 2004c) is established and thedatabase from 1990 is already being updated for2000. This information could form the basis for anongoing indicator reflecting the area and extent ofecosystem classes, and the way that this ischanging over time. Some work will need to bedone to turn this into an indicator, partly tocomplete the reassessment, but also, given thatthere are 44 classes of ecosystems in the CORINEclassification, a new methodology will need to bedeveloped to derive a composite indicator.

3 Measures of changes in threatened species. Thetrend towards extinction is measured by the Redlist index, and forms an indicator that iscomplementary to the population trends indexabove. Many of the species extinction riskassessments that underpin this indicator exist, andwhere they do not exist already, there arenetworks in place to develop them. Themethodology is already established (Butchart2004).

4 Measures of fishing impacts on marine fishes. TheMarine Trophic Index measures the changing statusof fisheries catches and has been shown to be arelevant indicator of fishing pressure. It seems likelythat this indicator could be adapted for freshwaterexploitative fisheries too, thereby providing ameans to balance the terrestrial systems thatdominate most of the other indicators.

Additionally, there is one ‘response’ measure that isavailable immediately.

5 Coverage of protected areas. This information onthe extent of protected areas in Europe is alreadyavailable and highly relevant.

This set of indicators provides information on some keydimensions of biodiversity, and already exists for the EUarea, or could be put together from existing initiatives.Importantly, these indicators are all also part of the setchosen by the CBD for their 2010 assessments. Hencewe recommend their immediate adoption andimplementation.


3 Conclusions and recommended next steps

While we strongly urge that these be further developedand implemented, their limitations need to berecognised and acknowledged. In particular:

· Population trends are largely available for birds, aremost reliable for birds in agricultural landscapes, andmay or may not represent trends in other terrestrialgroups of animals and plants, or in other terrestrialhabitats. We have no good datasets from which toderive trends in freshwater and marine habitats. Formany groups the bird data may prove to be aneffective surrogate, but we know that for certaingroups, especially organisms that live at small spatialscales, and those that depend upon very specifichabitat types, the indicator ought to supplemented byinformation from other species. Most important herewill be data on invertebrates and plants, andequivalent datasets from freshwater and marinehabitats.

· Habitat extent does not measure habitat quality. Theindicator could present an over-optimistic assessmentof habitat status, or protected area status, if keyspecies are not maintained or if the habitat becomesfragmented or subdivided. A particular concern is thatusing the CORINE data set to measure trends in habitatextent may prove to be a rather coarse tool, and thismay not be enough for a robust trend assessment.

· Species lists and red list assessments are fullydeveloped for mammals, birds, butterflies andamphibians, and in certain member countries(especially NW Europe). Other significant groups(plants, fungi, invertebrates, freshwater species,marine species) are less well to negligibly represented.

A second area for consideration is the attributes ofbiodiversity that are being reflected in these indicators.The indicators described above have emerged becausethe data and expert networks already exist, and notbecause there is a clear set of users for them. As a setthey are relevant to certain questions and concernsabout the status of biodiversity but it is important tonote that they do not address every topic of interest. Inparticular, some of the key roles in biodiversity discussedin section 2.3 are not addressed by these measures. Forexample, the provisioning services (such as food andfibre production and genetic resources) are addressedonly very indirectly for terrestrial systems. The marinetrophic index addresses this area for fisheries but otheraquatic provisioning service are missing altogether. Keyroles of biodiversity in supporting services such as soilformation and nutrient cycling are also missing from thisset, as are the increasingly significant regulating services(eg water regulation, climate regulation). Finally, and inthe context of sustainable development, our set haslittle that addresses biodiversity as a component of

sustainable management, especially as it related toagriculture, fisheries and natural resource extraction.

The weaknesses alluded to here are not limited toEuropean indicators. At broader levels, and in the globalagenda, the same applies. Hence, we recommend thatimplementation of existing measures should not bedelayed further while additional methods areestablished. But, at the same time as startingsystematically to gather information for the existingindicators, we strongly recommend that new steps aretaken to design and establish additional indicators thatmore fairly represent the range of benefits we receivefrom biodiversity.

3.2 The longer term – developing indicatorsfor the future

Biodiversity indicators need to be developed within abroader policy environment. Instead of adopting datasets that happen to exist from other initiatives, werecommend a structured approach to indicatordevelopment as outlined in the 2003 Royal Societyreport Measuring biodiversity for conservation whilefeeding into the IEBI2010 work. This specifies threestages:

1 Scoping – what are the aspects of biodiversity thatEU members do and should care about? This willrequire considering the functions delivered bybiodiversity (see Part 1), including aesthetic andcultural values as well as intrinsic value. Theappropriate measures can be derived from this setof valued attributes of biodiversity. The idealmeasure will also depend on the format of a targetdeveloped for post 2010, and the process todesign these should be run in tandem.

2 Designing indicators – this stage involves choosingmeasures but also considering how, from what,when and where the data supporting thesemeasures should be gathered. Ideally there wouldbe some pilot projects to test assumptions andstatistical properties of the measures before theyare fully implemented. This stage is currently beingaddressed by the IEBI2010 expert groups.

3 Implementation and reporting – once a system is inplace, the outputs from the indicators need to bechecked to ensure that are still relevant forpurpose, and that they are sufficient to meet theneeds specified in section 2.3.

This process will require new resources, but the cost ofdeveloping good indicators should easily be outweighedby the benefits of good management that they will allow.


Our starting point for this assessment is the selection ofa candidate list of indicators. The most comprehensiveset of viable indicators is the list that emerged from theMalahide Conference, with the addition of the LivingPlanet Index and the Natural Capital Index. Thefollowing assessment has been made to a standardformat and each index has been assessed by at leasttwo members of our project group.

A.1 Trends in extent of selected biomes,ecosystems and habitats

Biomes, ecosystems and habitats are the large-scalecomponents of biodiversity. The CBD plans to use anindicator of the trends in extent of selected biomes,ecosystems and habitats to assess the progress towardsthe 2010 target (CBD 2004).

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? People care about theextent of natural ecosystems. Recreation activitiesin natural and semi-natural habitats such asbirdwatching are very popular. People also placeexistence values on wilderness. Finally, the naturalcapacity of ecosystems to provide services topeople depends on the extents of thoseecosystems (MA 2003). The extent of ecosystemsand biomes is an indirect measure of the conditionof finer-scale levels of biodiversity such aspopulations and species (Sala et al 2005). Land-cover maps can also be used to analyze trends inlandscape diversity at a given scale (EEA 2004c),including trends in homogenization of agriculturallandscapes.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Land-use change is the main driver measured bythis indicator (Sala et al 2005). To a smaller extent,climate change also affects this indicator (Thomaset al 2004a).

(c) What data are available? Data on the extent ofecosystems is available from the CORINE LandCover (CLC) project, which developed a Europeanmap at the resolution of 250x250 m including 44classes of ecosystems based on the interpretationof satellite images for the year 1990 (althoughthere is debate about the quality of the land coverclasses that have been defined). A new CLC mapfor the year of 2000 was completed in November2004 (EEA, 2004c), allowing for a detailedexamination of recent trends (ETCTE 2004). Analternative set of indicators is the national forestinventories, which often have more detailedinformation about forest ecosystems than the

CLC, and go further back in time. The FAO GlobalForest Resources Assessment (2001) compilesinformation from national inventories andexamines trends from 1980 to 2000, with aparticular emphasis on 1990-2000. Inventories forother ecosystems are less developed (EEA 2003).For the 14 terrestrial biomes, remote sensing canbe combined with biophysical models to estimatehow much area has been converted to human-dominated uses (Mace 2005). When this data iscombined with historical population patterns andagriculture statistics, maps of biome conversioncan be elaborated from 1700 to 2000 (KleinGoldewijk, K., 2001). At the other extreme,integrated data on trends of extent of habitats ismore limited. There is an ongoing project toassess current trends of 218 natural and semi-natural habitats based on national expert teams,in response to the Habitats Directive.

(d) What are the limitations? This indicator says littleabout the condition of the remnant habitats andecosystems. For instance, habitat loss could behalted, but other drivers such as directexploitation, invasive species and pollution couldstill push the decline of species and populations.Another limitation is that it is mainly a terrestrialindicator, with no direct analogous for marinesystems. For freshwater systems some equivalentindicators could be considered such as the numberof free-flowing rivers or the length of free-flowingarms of rivers.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? This indicator iseasily aggregated from smaller to larger spatialscales and is additive. That is, the value at a largerscale can be calculated simply by averaging thevalues at lower scales. However, the larger thebiodiversity component considered, the lessrelevant the indicator is when aggregated. Thishappens because a biome can disappear locallywith impacts on endemic species and on theecosystem services provided to local populations,but this local disappearance may go unnoticedwhen data is aggregated at a large spatial scale.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Thisindicator would become more meaningful if itcould be complemented by information on trendsof populations of selected species.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Satellite data is relatively cheapand easily available. However the classification ofthe data in ecosystem categories can be timeconsuming, particularly for detailed habitat types.


Annex A: Assessment of available indicators

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? At theecosystem level this indicator could beimplemented immediately for most EU countriesbased on the CORINE Land Cover project.Indicators at the more detailed habitat level couldbe implemented in the near future depending onthe ongoing national implementations of theHabitats Directive. Indicators at the biome levelcould be developed in a short amount of time (2-3 years) based on remote sensing data.

A.2 Trends in abundance and distribution ofselected species

Populations and species constitute the most essentialcomponent of biodiversity. Viable populations indicatethe presence of healthy habitats and ecosystems.Therefore, trends in the abundance and distribution ofselected species is one of the most direct ways ofassessing whether progress towards the 2010 target(CBD 2004) is being made. Recently, the Farmland BirdIndex has been adopted for inclusion in the long-listStructural Indicators as a proxy on EU Biodiversity.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? People care greatly aboutmany species of plants and animals, which haveintrinsic value as essential components of thenatural environments. Many people enjoybirdwatching and observing mammals, butterflies,and plants and other taxa. Trends in harvestedgame and fish species are closely followed bypeople, both professionals and laymen.Recreational fishing and hunting are popularhobbies in many European countries. Trends inabundance and distribution of species have greatbiological significance, because the occurrence andpopulation size of species is one of the majorcomponents of biodiversity.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?The drivers of changes in the abundance anddistribution of species are complex, including local,national and global drivers and their interactions.Changes in land use lead to loss andfragmentation of habitats, which is the mostsignificant driver (Hanski 2005); the others includepersecution, impact of alien species, and climatechange (which is expected to be increasinglyimportant in the future; Thomas et al 2004a).

(c) What data are available? Within a few EU countries,high-quality data are available for many species ofvertebrates (birds, mammals, amphibians, fishes),some species of invertebrates (especially butterflies),and many groups of plants. For the EU as a whole,data on distribution and abundance of species isavailable only for birds (Hagemeijer & Blair, 1997;

BirdLife International, 2004a, 2004b). For otherspecies groups distribution data are available butfragmented, out of date, with varying quality levels.No abundance nor trend data are available at theEuropean level for these groups. For instance,Thomas et al (2004b) have analysed the decliningdistributions of birds, vascular plants, and butterfliesin Britain over the past 20 years. For some speciesand countries there are high-resolution atlas data(usually at 10-km resolution) collected at least attwo points in time, which allow very detailedassessment of changes in distribution andabundance. Two examples are the butterfly atlas inthe UK (Asher et al 2001) and the bird atlas inFinland (Väisänen et al 1998).

(d) What are the limitations? When high-quality long-term data on distribution and abundance arealready available, the data reflect accurately whatis happening to those species for which data havebeen collected. But as different species willrespond in a different manner to particular drivers,it is essential that the indicator species areappropriate for the particular environments. Newdata take a long time to accumulate, because oneneeds data for many years before trends indistribution and abundance can be properlyassessed.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? The indicatorcan be easily aggregated, because large- scalepopulation size and distribution are simply sums ofwhat exist at smaller scales. On the other hand,large-scale trends may hide local deviations fromthe overall trend.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Yes,though to some extent information on speciesabundance and distribution can be approximatedby information on the spatial extent of the habitatsof the species. Data on distribution and abundanceof species are very complementary in relation toother indicators apart from habitat measures.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Much data on species’abundances and distribution are being collected byamateurs and professionals, and it is possible tomake these data widely available with little extracost. On the other hand, initiating programs tocollect new data can be expensive. Collecting datafor little-studied taxa is expensive because thereare often only few experts who can identifysamples.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? This indicatorhas the strongest possibility for including civilscience, by using cost-effective on-line collection ofobservations made by amateurs.


A.3 Change in status of threatened and/orprotected species

An indicator of change in status of threatened and/orprotected species is being developed by the CBD basedon the IUCN-SSC Red List Programme. In Europe, thisindicator might usefully be based on information onEuropean Red List species and (other) species mentionedin the annexes of the Birds and Habitats Directives. TheEuropean Environment Agency is developing anindicator in this category (BDIV03) combininginformation on a) the number of threatened taxaoccurring at different geographical levels, b) the numberof globally threatened taxa endemic to Europe, c) thepercentage of globally threatened species perbiogeographic region, d) the percentage of Europeanthreatened species per biogeographic region and e)threatened forest species. The best current prospect forimplementation of this category of indicator is theIUCN-SSC Red List indicator (Butchart et al 2004) andthe comments below largely relate to this indicator.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? This indicator has highpublic resonance: people probably care moreabout threatened and protected species than anyother aspect of biodiversity, simply because theseare the species closest to extinction. However,although in general people care about suchspecies, there are some important differencesbetween species. Because this indicator measurestrends in species closest to extinction, it also hashigh biological relevance: measuring the status ofthreatened and protected species, albeit often achallenging task, is potentially the best measure ofboth biodiversity loss and the effectiveness ofpolicies and actions designed to halt the decline ofspecies faced with extinction.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?This indicator relates to multiple drivers – itintegrates the impact of all drivers of biodiversityloss. Moreover, it reflects the success or otherwiseof conservation policies and practices.Nevertheless, this indicator may be deconstructedto give valuable information on the impact ofindividual drivers such as excessive hunting orharvesting and of individual policies orconservation measures.

(c) What data are available? Data are alreadyavailable; much of it is coordinated, notably byIUCN, who have developed an indicator that isavailable for immediate testing. Excellent networksexist for many taxa. Information on manythreatened and/or protected species is, however,very poor and patchy – there is a strong biastowards birds, large mammals, higher plants andbutterflies. Most invertebrates are poorly covered,as are freshwater species, and the status of marine

species is inadequate; even the trends in the statusof most harvested fish species are poorlyunderstood.

(d) What are the limitations? The status of threatenedand/or protected species is always made difficultby the fact that such species are, because they arethreatened and/or protected, usually rare and,therefore, their status and trends in abundance aredifficult to measure.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? This indicatorcan be readily aggregated and disaggregated,providing information by, for example,geographical area or taxonomic group.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? The datanecessary for the assessment of threat status servemany other important uses.

(g) Is it cost-effective? This indicator is achieved athigh cost and effort but the work of collecting andcollating the information underpinning theindicator is well advanced demonstratingcommitment to the collection, collation andreporting of the data.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? This type ofindicator is already being used in the IUCN-SSCRed List Programme and could readily be expandedto include all species of Community interest i.e.those listed in the annexes to the Birds andHabitats Directives. Its relevance to species that aremost threatened by extinction and to species thatCommunity legislation has a particular emphasison make this a high priority indicator for furtherimplementation.

A.4 Trends on genetic diversity of domesticatedanimals, cultivated plants and fish speciesof major socioeconomic importance

Agricultural biodiversity is the diversity of crops, cropvarieties and breeds domesticated by humans. Thegenetic diversity of fish species of major socioeconomicimportance is not a component of agriculturalbiodiversity but is a major component of the biodiversitydirectly exploited by humans. The CBD plans to developthis indicator further (CBD 2004).

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? The loss of genetic diversityin agriculture and fisheries reduces the geneticmaterial available for use by future generations.Furthermore, widely cultivated varieties areparticularly susceptible to pests or environmentalhazards. Even when the variety has a resistancegene, a single mutation in the pathogen leaves apopulation of plant hosts uniformly vulnerable to


the pathogen (FAO 1997). Some of the loss of thegenetic diversity in agriculture and fisheries isassociated with homogenization of agriculturelandscapes, which has an impact on non-domesticated biodiversity as well.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?The main drivers associated with the loss ofagricultural biodiversity are the intensification ofagriculture and the adoption of improved varietiescommercialized to farmers (FAO 1997). The maindrivers associated with the loss of genetic diversityin exploited species is overfishing and releasesfrom fish farms.

(c) What data are available? About 2500 breeds areregistered in the FAO breeds database, and trendscan be calculated from the 1995 and 1999updatings of the database (EEA 2003). However,this is a short time span, raising some doubts onthe reliability of a trend analysis. Similarly, the FAOhas established a database for plant geneticresources which lists about 65 000 varieties from1249 cultivated crops (FAO 2004). Other databasesinclude the European Central Crop Databases andthe SINGER database. Several ‘ex situ conservation’programmes were started in the 1970s, by storingseeds from the different varieties in genebanks,under the auspices of the International PlantGenetic Resources Institute (FAO 1997). Less isknown about the exact trends in the number ofvarieties still in use by farmers (OECD 2003), theso-called ‘conservation in situ’, but the adoption ofcommercial varieties by farmers has led to a cleardecrease in the number of varieties in use. Finally,despite known impacts of fishing and aquacultureon directional selection of life-history parameters,little data is available to quantify trends in geneticdiversity of fish species.

(d) What are the limitations? This indicator is restrictedto a very small subset of biodiversity and does notsay much about biodiversity at large. Anotherlimitation is that it is not clear how to assessgenetic diversity from the morphological diversityof varieties, but this limitation could be surpassedby performing genetic studies.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? Data fromnational or sub-national scale can be aggregatedat larger spatial scales, but care should be taken toguarantee that varieties and breeds are namedwith the same nomenclature across regions.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Thisindicator measures a very small subset of Earth’sbiodiversity that is not measured by most otherindicators and has high relevance for humans.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Improving our basic knowledgeof in-situ conservation for agricultural crops wouldnot be expensive. This could be done by buildingon ongoing initiatives such as the agri-environmental measures of the CAP, and the FAOinventories. A more detailed knowledge of geneticdiversity will require genetic studies and will bemore expensive. For fish resources it wouldprobably be more cost-effective to focus onmonitoring genetic diversity of a few selectedspecies through molecular markers andmeasurements of life-history parameters.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? It will takesome time and resources before this indicator canbe used for crops, breeds and fish resources.

A.5 Coverage of protected areas

Designation of (semi)natural areas for nature protectionpurposes has been a key tool in biodiversityconservation for many decades. Reporting of thenumber and extent of protected areas at variousgeographical scales is common practice and easilyunderstood. As a consequence, this indicator is the onlybiodiversity-related indicator broadly adopted within theEU.

(a) Does it measure things people care about anddoes it have biological relevance? The number andextent of protected areas is a relativelystraightforward and easy to understand indicatorfor communication to the wider public andpolicymakers. People care about this information ifit affects their own land (not so much ‘how muchland is protected?’, but ‘where is it?’) or if it affectstheir leisure or living activities (‘where is thenearest nature reserve and what does it offerme?’). For policymakers the indicator is relevantbecause it reflects how far they implementbiodiversity policies (and almost always it is anindicator which only shows an increasing trendover time). It therefore is by itself purely a responseindicator indicating political commitment and levelof administration but which, when taken alone,does not reveal much about the quality or value ofbiodiversity or the effectiveness of policy measures.


(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Key drivers for establishment of protected areasare the sectors that compete for land: agriculture,urbanization and transport infrastructure, andtourism. Drivers that affect the quality of protectedareas once they are established are climate change,indirect pressures from agriculture andinfrastructure as well as tourism pressures.

(c) What data are available? Much data are availableat national and international levels, with clearlyidentified responsibilities for European collectionand dissemination to Council of Europe, UNEP-WCMC and ETC/NPB (Common Database onDesignated Areas). The level of collection intensityand quality varies by country, which results indifferences in completion and accessibility of data.There is a decreasing availability from the local tothe EU level due to the various stages of transfer,checking and approval of data.

(d) What are the limitations? A key problem is thevariation in definitions of protected areas bycountry (Richard et al 2003) with manyoverlapping terms. Also, multiple overlappingdesignations cause errors in the aggregatedindicator values, with duplication of values as aresult (Delbaere & Beltran, 1999). Interpretation ofthe indicator requires linking to targets anddirections, as well as additional information onmanagement effectiveness. Difficulties also relateto date changes, with areas of protected areas andtheir national designations and IUCN categories

changing over time. Ideally, measures of the qualityor effectiveness of the Protected area would beavailable as well as area, but so far there has beenlittle progress on methods to achieve this.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? Yes. Although,as with all aggregations of data, information is lostwhen aggregating, it is perfectly possible to addup number and extent of protected areas atvarious geographical scales. Aggregation is alsopossible for selected types of designations (e.g.according to IUCN category).

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Thisindicator is not only complementary to otherindicators, other indicators are actually required tobe able to fully interpret the indicator. It adds valuein combination with measurements on extent ofhabitats, species population size or presence, andmanagement effectiveness. Especially in comparisonwith similar parameters outside of protected areas itmay provide information on effectiveness ofprotected areas for conservation purposes.

(g) Is it cost-effective? The indicator is relatively easyto collect with modest time investment. Theinformation can be (and mostly is) collected bygovernment administrations. Costs do increasewith aggregation or transfer to internationaldatabases but they are still relatively low comparedto other indicators. The information collected israther accurate and factual.


Figure 4 Cumulated area of nationally designated areas over time in 30 European countries for theperiod 1900-2002 (Source: EEA-ETC/NPB, Common Database on Designated Areas,December 2003)

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(h) Can it be implemented/used now?Yes. It is already widely used at various levels.

A.6 Area of forest, agricultural, fishery andaquaculture ecosystems under sustainablemanagement

The area of forest, agricultural, fishery and aquacultureecosystems under sustainable management is importantin itself and as an indicator of biodiversity, given thenegative impact on biodiversity of unsustainablemanagement practices. This indicator is beingdeveloped by the CBD but excluding fisheries. Proposalsfor development of this indicator in the EU do includefisheries. Relevant developments in Europe include, inparticular, the Pan-European Criteria and Indicators forSustainable Forest Management, established under theMinisterial Conference on the Protection of Forests inEurope (MCPFE), and indicator reporting on theintegration of environmental concerns into agriculturalpolicy (IRENA) by the European Commission. In bothcases, the set of indicators includes several of direct orindirect relevance to biodiversity. For example the IRENAset includes area under agri-environment support(IRENA01), area under nature protection (IRENA04),high nature farmland areas (IRENA26), species richness(IRENA28) and impacts of habitats and biodiversity(IRENA33).

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? Public awareness of theterm ‘sustainable forest management’, forexample, is low, ranging from about 10-50%according to country (Rametsteiner, 1998).However, the sustainable management ofecosystems is likely to become more important forpeople as they become increasingly concernedabout the sustainability of the ecosystems thatsupply their food and other natural products.Nevertheless there are potentially serious problemswith the degree of acceptance of sustainablemanagement among some stakeholdersconcerned with the exploitation of theseecosystems. The forest sector appears to be anexception to this, following marked changes in thelast 20 years. As mentioned above indicators ofsustainability have been developed, notably inforests and agriculture. Some of these indicatorshave strong biological relevance, others have littlerelevance to biodiversity.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?This indicator relates mainly to individual driverssuch as unsustainable forestry practices. However,it also relates to multiple drivers, some of themcomplex. For example, economic pressures ontraditional farming and husbandry lead to thespread of unsustainable agriculture. This indicator

also has the potential to provide information onsuccess or otherwise of conservation policies in allecosystems, including the marine.

(c) What data are available? Data are becomingavailable for each ecosystem. For forests, theMCPFE Pan-European Criteria and Indicators forSustainable Forest Management provide apotentially useful starting point. Data are nowavailable for these indicators and for indicators ofsustainable agriculture; these could potentially besummarised as a single ‘area’ indicator (but seebelow). For fisheries, ICES data provide a crediblebasis for assessing sustainable management.

(d) What are the limitations? Despite the developmentof indicators of sustainability in forestry andagriculture, only some of these indicators provideinformation on an area basis. The derivation of acomposite indicator or the selection of a singleindicator to describe the area of an ecosystemunder sustainable management is challenging:information from sustainability indicators that donot provide data on an area basis will be lost.Nevertheless, indicators such as the area of highnature value farmland are potentially valuablesingle indicators of area under sustainablemanagement (see EEA 2004a). ICES data could beused to establish the area of fisheries undersustainable management, although differences inthe assessment of sustainable management ofdifferent fish species in the same area is acomplicating factor. The prospects for developingthis indicator meaningfully for aquaculture is muchless good.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? This type ofindicator can be aggregated and dis-aggregated.However, as discussed above, only some of theinformation available on sustainable managementis expressed on an area basis: this information canbe readily aggregated.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Some ofthe indicators under development arecomplementary to other types of indicator (eg areaunder agri-environment support), but othersoverlap with other types of indicator discussed inthis report (eg area under nature protection,species richness and impacts of habitats andbiodiversity). However, the strength of this type ofindicator, whether or not the underpinninginformation is used in other contexts, is that it isecosystem-specific and therefore provides a usefulbiodiversity indicator in each of these ecosystems.

(g) Is it cost-effective? This type of indicator is notparticularly costly or impractical to adopt, as theMCPFE experience has shown.


(h) Can it be implemented/used now? This indicatorcannot be implemented without furtherdevelopment in each of the ecosystems concerned.The aim of specifying this indicator in terms of areais a good one in that it potentially provides anquantitative measure of sustainable managementbut this limits the prospects for short-termimplementation, despite the work that has alreadybeen done on indicators of sustainability indifferent ecosystems. Some of the indicators ofsustainability that are in development or use suchas the area of an ecosystem within the NATURA2000 Network might provide misleadinginformation on the area under sustainablemanagement. Others, such as the area of highnature farmland in Europe, have greater potentialas a measure of sustainable management relevantto biodiversity.

A.7 Nitrogen deposition

There is an ample evidence that an increase of nitrogeninput to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems causes adecrease of biodiversity, enhancing the domination ofindividual species. This concerns vegetation (eg Bobbinket al 1998, Krupa 2003) as well as soil invertebrates andmicroorganisms . Nitrogen input (in the form of dry andwet deposition) is routinely monitored in all Europe, as apart of standard environmental monitoring (seeEuropean Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP)).

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? Nitrogen deposition is ofgreat interest to the public, as it influencesdrinking water quality, and eutrophication of waterbodies (often used for tourism), which often resultsin undesirable algal growth. It also has additionalresonance because of its relationship withlegislation-driven changes in agricultural practice.Moreover, there is growing public awareness thatnitrogen deposition influences almost anyecosystem, and that it is responsible for the loss ofvaluable recreational habitats such as heathlands.Nitrogen deposition is of global importance and akey driver of environmental change in almost anynatural, semi-natural or anthropogenic ecosystem,threatening its biodiversity and strongly influencingits ecosystem function. Ammonium and nitrateinputs are predicted for both dry and wetdeposition. Ammonium is strongly acidifying andhence most reactive to vascular plant tissuedirectly. Both enrich the soil with nitrogen, thusinfluencing ecosystem productivity. This leads tothe spread of nitrogen-tolerant species (includingalien species from warmer climes that are generallyused to greater nitrogen mineralisation rates) atthe expense of species typical of nitrogen-poorecosystems. The latter are, therefore, frequentlythreatened, some almost with extinction.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Whereas nitrogen deposition is a widelyacknowledged key driver of environmental change,our understanding of the full extent of nitrogendeposition impacts is still in its infancy because ofinteractions between nitrogen deposition andother environmental drivers such as grazing andclimate change. A general pattern is emerging,which suggests that nitrogen deposition hasgreatest impact on terrestrial systems throughamplification of the direct enrichment effects byadditional factors such as grazing or disease.

(c) What data are available? Good quality data areavailable in a series of maps from across the EUbased on a range of nitrogen depositionmeasurement networks. Whereas application ofthe data at the international, national or regionalscale is highly appropriate, specific predictions atlocal scale suffer from under-representation ofsampling conditions. This problem manifests itselffor high altitude systems in particular and a bettercoverage of measurements in those extremelynitrogen-sensitive systems is urgently required.

(d) What are the limitations? Data quality is high, andwell reported on. Most data on nitrogendeposition are available from spatially explicitmodels. The relationship between nitrogendeposition and impacts on species is establishedfor some habitats. For non-aquatic systems, plantshave been the centre of attention, althoughincreasingly impacts on soil invertebrates and birdshave also been included. Traditionally, there hasbeen more a species than habitat driven approach.Whereas many questions remain unanswered, thescientific community has made very good progresswith its understanding of nitrogen depositionimpacts.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? Disaggregationis possible, although some habitats or speciesgroups are not very well represented in nationalmeasurement schemes. Among those are highaltitude systems, which are, ironically, at greatestrisk due to disproportionately high nitrogendeposition loads and greatest sensitivity associatedto their skeletal soils. Aggregation to larger scalesis very well handled.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Given thatnitrogen deposition is such a universal feature ofthe modern world, it adds considerably to othermeasures, and allows a far better understanding ofbiodiversity changes than other individualmeasures would provide alone.

(g) Can it be implemented/used now? This indicatorcan be implemented immediately because of theinformation that already exists on nitrogen


deposition. However, more effort is needed torelate nitrogen deposition directly to biodiversityimpacts. Priority issues have been identified. It nowneeds the courage of the scientific and fundingcommunities to see through longer-termexperiments to unravel the key mechanismsinvolved in nitrogen deposition effects to allowbetter predictions for large-scale biodiversity lossfrom nitrogen enrichment.

A.8 Number and costs of alien species

The introduction of vertebrates is well documented. Theincorporation of cultivated plants, trees and somegarden plants is also known with some precision.Invertebrates, annuals, small herbs, are largely ignoredunless they cause some interference. Pests, plagues andtheir vectors, have been identified and monitored, butthey represent but the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of a worldphenomenon.

The Strategic Targeted Research Project DAISE(Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe)is intended to fill gaps in EU-wide knowledge of speciesinvasion.

The cost is difficult to assess with the exception ofplagues where it tends to be high. Costs arise from directimpact on an economic sector (such as pests, pathogens,dangerous organisms), costs of eradication andconfinement or trade barriers to products or interferenceto ecosystem performance in natural cycles, economicservices, valued species, communities or ecosystems.Costs, if they have been calculated, refer to a certainorganism in an area or the use of some resource.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? The Issue of biologicalinvasions has a high profile, especially amongconservation bodies. The wider public have mixedviews. New organisms are often perceived as‘improvements’ and people favour the introductionof alien species, races or varieties. It iscommonplace in airports to find travellerssmuggling live specimens, seeds and the like fortheir own enjoyment, without commercialimplications. In agriculture or husbandry, newspecies, races, transgenic varieties are the basis forthe expansion of the primary sector.

The number of introduced species gives noindication of the extent of ecological disturbance.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?In this case the indicator is a driver.

(c) What data are available? Reliable data on vascularplants exist, and maps are available at differentscales (Atlas of Flora Europaea (although out of

date and very incomplete), Vegetation Map ofEurope, national Floras). Data on communities orvegetation types are less accurate and more difficultto compare at the EU scale. The categories ofnative, naturalised or invasive species are notcompletely consistent among publications. Somespecies of European origin have been introduced toother European areas as well. Birds and butterflieshave accurate records for many areas and longperiods. Mammals (other than bats), have goodrecords, and with a lower precision level the sameholds true for other vertebrates. Invertebrates,mosses, lichens, fungi or algae, and other groupshave a much lower degree of information, and thedetection of invasions is more difficult to ascertain.

Continental waters (fish, amphibians), and coastalwaters receive a steady flow of alien speciesescaping from aquaculture and navigationpractices but few recording systems exist.

(d) What are the limitations? Data on invasive speciesmay encompass information on population size,structure, range and abundance. This is mostrelevant to conservationists and managers ofnatural areas. It is important to monitor someespecially vulnerable habitats.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? Data can beaggregated at the scale of a single species, afunctional group or a broader taxonomic group,and can be estimated for single habitats up to EU-scale. Disaggregation to finer scales should beundertaken with caution since coarse resolutionoverestimates the distribution and abundance ofinvasive species.

(f) Is it complementary to other drivers? There will besome overlap of the index with ‘Trends inabundance and distribution of selected species’(A.2 above) if natives and non-natives were notseparated.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Data collection can be costly,but may be collected for other reasons, nationalstrategies on conservation, for example.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? Not really.

A.9 Impact of climate change on biodiversity

Climate change impacts on species can be assessed bytracking over time the distributional ranges of species,the timing of onset of seasonal cycles and populationgrowth rates. Alongside information on local climatethese data can provide evidence that climate change isaffecting species distributions or viability. In certain casesthese studies, which are primarily correlational, mayneed to be supported by experimental studies.


Establishing indicators for climate change has begun(see eg UK indicators of climate change (Cannell et al,1999), European level (EEA, 2004b) and global (Greenet al, 2001)). In general this will involve selecting someindicators, particularly susceptible species and habitats,and instituting annual recordings of the locations andtiming of key events. In much of Europe, amateur andscientific records collected systematically for this andother purposes can easily be adopted into such ascheme to provide a long term data set.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? Climate change is nowentering public consciousness, and clear evidencefor its effects are certainly of interest. However,given that most changes have so far been slightrange shifts, or small alterations in the timing ofannual cycles, the public perception is not great.Similarly, the biological impacts have so far beensmall, but over the next 50 to 100 years thesesmall but progressive changes could have a majorimpact on species and ecosystems.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Such indicators measure climate change bydefinition, but there are very importantinteractions with other drivers, in particular withhabitat/landscape change, to the extent that theimpact of climate change may be reverseddepending on the values of landscape/habitatproperties.

(c) What data are available? Data quality is very highfor some taxa in some regions, especially innorthern Europe, but little or no data exist for manyother taxa, especially many invertebrates andplants. There are societies and organizations thatcollect relevant data, and so a European-widedatabase could be developed without too muchdifficulty. Data always refer to particular species andoften to particular habitats, and it may be difficultto apply results from one situation to another.

(d) What are its limitations? Because the changes maybe very slight, and are often viewed against abackground of high inter-annual variation, trendsmay be hard to detect over short time periods orslight climate change. Also, some longer-termenvironmental cycles could be driving the changesobserved in some species and habitats, andadditional studies may be necessary to eliminatethese as the causal factors.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? The data canprobably be aggregated and disaggregated at leastto the level of resolution at which they werecollected: in the case of distributional changes bysumming up results for smaller areas, and in the

case of seasonal changes in breeding by averagingover time.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Thesemeasures are complementary to data on speciesabundance and distribution, because they allowpredictions to be made about the future trendsgiven assumptions about the nature and rate ofclimate change. In addition, the indicators willrelate to the functioning of communities andecosystems, because climate change may disruptbiological interactions. Seasonality anddistributions can be modelled with climatic data,and these models can be used to predict baselinepredictions that can be compared with empiricalobservations. Butterflies and plants provide goodexamples.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Much data on seasonal anddistributional data are being collected by amateursand professionals without any extra cost (eg vianational ‘nature calendar’ web sites), but collectingnew empirical data without their help would beexpensive. Making comparisons between climate-model predicted patterns and empirically observedpatterns is a cost-effective way of getting moreinformation.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? Many data setsare already available and could be assimilated quitequickly – including the historical data. A moresystematic sampling programme would requiremore time and resources but is probably essentialto establish soon. Data should be collected withina larger programme that includes climate andspecies area spatial modelling to extract maximumvalue from the data.

A.10 Marine trophic index

The term ‘Marine trophic index’ is the CBD’s name forthe mean trophic level of fisheries landings. Trophic levelmeasures the position of a species in a food web,starting with ‘producers’ (eg phytoplankton, plants) atlevel 0, and moving through primary consumers that eatprimary producers (level 1) and secondary consumersthat eat primary consumers (level 2), and so on. Inmarine fishes, the trophic levels vary from two to five(top predators). Pauly et al (1998) demonstrated thatfisheries, since 1950, are increasingly relying on thesmaller, short-lived fish and on the invertebrates fromthe lower parts of both marine and freshwater foodwebs. More work has now been done to establish thewidespread nature of trophic level changes in marinefisheries catches, and to demonstrate their usefulness insummarizing fisheries impact on marine ecosystems (see Pauly & Watson, 2005).


Figure 5 Trends in mean trophic levels of fisheries landings, 1950 to 2000


(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? This indicator measuressomething that people increasing care about: adecline in the abundance and diversity of fishspecies, specifically the loss of fish species high inthe food chain, such as cod. The phenomenon of‘fishing down the food chain’ is gradually becomeappreciated but the public perception is of declinein particular species irrespective of their ecologicalrole. This indicator captures the loss of predatoryfish species well but has poor public resonancebecause of its complexity. In principle it seems verylikely that the loss of top predators and thereduction of the trophic structure in the oceans willhave some broader consequences for ecosystemstability and function, although this has not as yetbeen established with certainty.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Fishing mortality (which is in principle under tightmanagement), is the dominant driver of change inthis index. The decline is explained by the intensityof fishing effort on large-bodied, high trophic-level species, and the decline in these over timeindicates unsustainable levels of offtake. Thecontinuing decline suggests that as stocks ofhigher trophic level fishes are depleted, the focusmoves to the next level down – thus driving aprogressive decline.

(c) What data are available? In principle the index can

be calculated globally and regionally for anyfisheries area for which accurate information onlandings can be obtained. Data are thereforealready available and can be presented (as anindicator) for separate marine areas (eg Baltic Sea)or presented as composite indicator for all seasrelevant to the EU. In addition the trophic level ofeach harvested species of fish needs to be known– this is available from FISHBASE, and fisherieslaboratories such as CEFAS are workingindependently on how to assess tropic level.

(d) What are its limitations? Various alternativeexplanations for the observed trend have been putforward, especially by the FAO staff (Caddy et al).However, these have now all been further testedand cannot explain the data (Pauly & Watson2005). It has been suggested that long-termclimate change affecting zooplankton tophytoplankton levels can contribute to changesmeasured in the MTI, but this is unproven as yet.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? Within thelimitations set by how the data are collected,disaggregation should pose no problem. Howeverin practice this may not be so straightforward. Forexample, if information on fish landings isgathered at national level (where the fish arebrought to land) it may not be possible todisaggregate to the population or ocean area fromwhich they were taken.

Based on aggregation of data from over 180,000 1/2 degree lat./long (based on spatial dissagregation method ofWatson et al. (2004). Note strong decline, particularly in the North Atlantic

Year

North Atlantic

Global coastal

Tro

ph

ic le

vel

3.6

3.5

3.4

3.3

3.21950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? This isreally the only measure that reflects change in themarine environment, and is therefore an importantone. It is also a measure of the trend in a driver(fishing) rather than simply a measure of the stateof marine fish populations. There is an overlapbetween this indicator and the fishery element ofthe indicator ‘area of forest, agricultural, fisheryand aquaculture ecosystems under sustainablemanagement’ (A.6 above). However, the fisheryelement of that indicator is poorly developed,whereas the marine tropic index is well developedand ready for testing and future development.

(g) Is it cost-effective? The information on which thisindicator is based is already being routinelycollected. If issues of data availability and samplingare dealt with this index can be very cost-effective.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? The data areavailable and the methodology established. Thisindicator can be implemented immediately.

A.11 Connectivity/fragmentation ofecosystems

Habitat loss is commonly associated with increasingfragmentation of the remaining habitat, hence thisindicator is closely linked with trends in the extent ofselected biomes, ecosystems and habitats (see A.1above). Increasing fragmentation leads to reducedconnectivity of the populations at the landscape level,which will reduce the viability of metapopulations atlarge spatial scales.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological significance? People often valuelandscapes that are not fragmented, though inother cases even highly fragmented landscapesmay have recreational value. Becausefragmentation greatly influences species diversityat the landscape level this indicator reflects,indirectly, the values that can be attached tospecies diversity: existence, use, and ecosystemservices. In particular, fragmentation may disruptecosystem services. This indicator has greatbiological relevance, because increasingfragmentation decreases the viability at largespatial scales (Hanski 2005). When a species-specific critical threshold value (extinctionthreshold) in the amount and fragmentation of theremaining habitat has been passed, the species isexpected to go extinct (see figure 3).

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?The drivers of increasing fragmentation anddecreasing connectivity are the same drivers thatcause changes in the extent of biomes, ecosystemsand habitats. Change in land use is the by far most

important driver at present, but in the near futureclimate change will start to have such importantimpact on habitats (Thomas et al 2004a) that it willalso start influencing fragmentation.

(c) What data are available? The data needed tocalculate the degree of fragmentation are thesame data that are needed to calculate trends inthe extent of selected biomes, ecosystems andhabitats (see A.1 above). For instance, at theEuropean scale, data produced by the CORINELand Cover project can be used to calculatemeasures of fragmentation. At smaller scales,inventories of habitat types based on remotesensing, maps, and ground surveys can be used tocalculate the degree of fragmentation. At present,much data are available, but they are patchy,usually having been compiled for particularlocalities and countries and particular habitats.Different methods have been used to calculateconnectivity/fragmentation in different contexts(Turner, 2001), and there is a need to developmore widely used measures.

(d) What are the limitations? Data quality is patchy atpresent, but high-quality data could be collectedrelatively easily, and there are sophisticatedprograms to store and manipulate such data (GIS).Data are available at the level of particularhabitats. Knowing the habitat selection of species,these data indirectly reflect the abundance anddistribution of species (habitat models; Elith andBurgman, 2003), though with the caveat thatwhen the extinction threshold is passed speciesdrop out from a landscape even when there is stillsome highly fragmented habitat left. A limitationin terms of interpreting impacts of fragmentationis in the species-habitat dependency of theindicator: ie where fragmentation of a certainhabitat type is negative for one species, it may bebeneficial to another.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? Yes, thoughaggregation/disaggregation typically requires anew calculation for the aggregated/disaggregatedlandscape data. The calculation itself is not time-consuming.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Data onconnectivity/fragmentation are intimately linkedwith data on the extent of habitats. The two typesof data are usually obtained, stored and analysedsimultaneously.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Relatively cheap indicator, effortneeded to cover large areas not great (remotesensing, existing maps), and not prone to errors(though remote-sensed data have to be properlyvalidated, see A.1 above).


A.12 Water quality in freshwater ecosystems

Water quality is a major influence on the biodiversity offreshwater systems. Apart from species restricted tofreshwater, many birds, fishes, amphibians andhundreds of invertebrates are dependent uponfreshwater bodies at some point in their reproductivecycle. Hence, freshwater bodies have a disproportionateimportance. The widespread use of detergents,antibiotics or hormones pollutes waters. Sewagetreatment plants are unable completely to remove themfrom effluents, so they have increasing effects on wildpopulations.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? Drinking water quality is aprimary concern for people. This is not solely ahealth issue: water taste and odour are alsorelevant even if they were not connected to health.But water quality is not correlated in a linear wayto biodiversity. For oligotrophic waters, theaddition of nutrients raises productivity and(usually) raises biodiversity, causing the water bodyto become eutrophic. A high nutrient status or aheavy organic matter load favours some organismsover others, leading to overabundance of somedominant organisms and a drop in diversity. Ifeutrophication further increases, otherconsequences such as fermentation of newlysynthesized biomass and oxygen depletion mayoccur, with a marked drop in the biodiversity oforganisms. Under heavy pollution, only microorganisms survive.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?There are multiple drivers. Most significant are landuse, the addition of fertilizers (especially nitrogen-based fertilizers) in the watershed, waterabstraction, irrigation, urban and industrial supply,and treatment of waste water. Soil drainage andwater impoundment alter the volume and surfaceof water bodies and wetlands available for aquaticbiodiversity.

Water use and water treatment control quality,affecting its biological diversity. In theMediterranean region, water abstraction fromaquifers may imperil the survival of wetlands.

(c) What data are available? Water quality data basedon chemical analysis are quite common all over EU.Cross-validation programmes have been runningconnecting laboratories and water supplycompanies so that the bulk of available data arereliable. As new legislation has been passed, newindicators have been incorporated into theanalysis, including a long list of chemicals, andsome aquatic organisms (viruses, bacteria andblue-green algae, dinoflagellate) that may causediseases. The regular study of planktonic

communities in reservoirs and lakes is rather rare.Detailed data series from a number of sites(waterfowl, fish populations, plankton, andbenthos) form a network of indicators on diversityat various taxonomic levels and the environmentalvariables associated with them. Waterfowl data areavailable over long time periods.

(d) What are its limitations? The enormous number ofplanktonic species (amounting to several hundredsfor a single water body) and the scarcity oftaxonomists make it difficult to develop an overallassessment of the diversity of all relevantcomponents of the aquatic biota. Unfortunately,the detailed knowledge of diversity trends in awell-studied biological group (such as birds orfishes) cannot be extrapolated to other, less well-known groups.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? The indicator issuited to the broad EU scale, provided adjustmentsare made to the different climatic regions.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Mostother indicators are concentrated in terrestrialbiomes. This measure is complementary in that it isdirectly focused on the aquatic habitats on whichmany species, not only aquatic species, depend. Inaddition, water quality is also of interest to humanand wildlife health and to aesthetic values.

(g) Is it cost-effective? As far as data have beencollected and are available the implementation isvery cost-effective. Modest additional monitoringprogrammes could substantially increase thesignificance of existing data, at rather little cost.Full assessment of freshwater quality wouldhowever be very complex and costly. There are alsosome limitations on what can be achieved becauseof limitation in taxonomic expertise.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? Yes. A largeamount of data on water quality is available, andthey are reliable. Biological monitoring is morerestricted to some watersheds and water bodies.

A.13 Investment in biodiversity

An array of donors and investors provide money forprojects on biodiversity conservation, for administrativesupport for implementation and development ofbiodiversity policy, and for organizations that worktowards conservation. The amount of money madeavailable by country may give an indication of thecommitment of countries for biodiversity conservation.A proper formulation of a definition and furtherdevelopment of the indicator are required before it canbe implemented.


(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasbiological relevance? Probably ordinary people donot care about this type of indicator, unless itrelates to the benefits associated with funding forbiodiversity. Policymakers and investors may caremore in relation to analysing the costs and benefitsof their funding efforts. The indicator does not sayanything about biodiversity value but is a responseindicator.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?A key driver for this indicator is the economicsituation of a country or other funding body.Additionally public awareness and commitment tobiodiversity conservation can be a driver as well.

(c) What data are available? At the present, aheterogeneous situation. Examples of monetarymeasures include: agri-environmental measures,protected area support, preparation ofbiodiversity action plans, and species protectioninitiatives. Indirect measures include any naturalresource protection measure, as pollution/cleanup of air, land and water will always reduce riskto biodiversity. Measures include soildecontamination, nitrogen vulnerable zones, large-scale fresh water filtering, smokestackscrubbers etc. Sources of financing are disparate:international finance institutions (additionalityprinciple), national / local governments, privateenterprises / industrial sector agreements. Nostandardized collection of funding data atpresent.

(d) What are the limitations? Data to underpin thisindicator are non-harmonized, fragmented, hardlycollected, recorded or reported. It is also difficult todistinguish between species/habitat component.Compatibility of data has to be ensured: eg GEFmay fund biodiversity action plans for countrieswith economies in transition, yet developedcountries will do so out of their own budgets.There is also a ‘scale’ issue: a spent for a BAP inBulgaria is worth considerably more than a spentin the UK. The main limitation therefore is the lackof a consistent definition of the indicator.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? If the limitationsreferred to above can be overcome, thenaggregation should be possible by adding upfunding from various sources or geographicallevels. Most likely funding should be expressed inrelative rather than absolute terms.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Thisindicator is not only complementary to otherindicators, other indicators are actually required tobe able to fully interpret the indicator. It adds valuein combination with measurements on state and

trends and with effectiveness of the measure beingfunded.

(g) Is it cost-effective? Once defined, the indicator isprobably rather easy to collect. This should be inthe form of an index. The difficulty in developingindicators on funding biodiversity is implicit in thecommentary of the headline indicator ‘Funding forBiodiversity’ that appears in the ‘EU Comments’column of the table on ‘EU headline biodiversityindicators based on CBD decision and focal areas’in the Message from Malahide document, whichis: Funding biodiversity in economic anddevelopment cooperation, research, monitoring,and site management is an issue in EC BiodiversityStrategy. There are NO comments in the threeother columns: ‘CBD status’, ‘relevant EEA coreset(s)’, and ‘other relevant developments’.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? No.

A.14 Public awareness and participation

Indicators under the category of public awareness andparticipation in biodiversity-related activities are beingdeveloped in some European countries. This indicator ofpublic opinion is one of the few indicators proposed forimplementation in the European Union that had notbeen identified as a candidate indicator by the CBD.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? This indicator potentiallyprovides a direct measure of what people careabout by measuring their opinions and actionswith respect to biodiversity. Indeed, aEurobarometer survey of attitudes of Europeancitizens towards the environment in 2002 showedthat nature protection was second only topollution in towns and cities as the firstenvironmental issue that people thought of (Theattitudes of Europeans towards the environment(Eurobarometer 58.0), European Opinion ResearchGroup 2002). This indicator has no direct biologicalrelevance as it does not measure status and trendsin biodiversity or the drivers of these trends.Nevertheless, it is a potentially important indicatorin the context of biodiversity as it provides ameasure of support for action to preventbiodiversity loss.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?This indicator is not directly related to proximatedrivers of biodiversity loss but it is a potentialindicator of some socio-economic drivers,particularly social drivers such as current and futurewillingness to exploit natural resources to thedetriment of biodiversity and public pressure tosupport policies and actions to halt biodiversity loss.


(c) What data are available? Some data on publicawareness and participation are available. InEngland, for example, the indicator of publicattitudes to biodiversity comprises awareness ofthe word ‘biodiversity’, expressed concern for lossof wildlife and support for the payment offarmers to protect wildlife. Participation indicatorscomprise progress with Biodiversity Action Plans(BAPs) in different habitats as well as Local BAPs(LBAPs), public enjoyment of woodland, ease ofaccess to local green space and countryside,proportion of households undertaking wildlifegardening and numbers of visits to naturereserves.

The recent report of the Polish Institute forSustainable Development (in 2000, involving theresearch continued since 1992) revealed a decreaseof the proportion of pro-ecological attitudes (fromabout 33% to 22%). A clear division is visiblebetween the economically well situated, higheducated and ecologically concerned urbanpopulation and the poorer, less educated, ruralpopulation, which is ecologically indifferent. Forboth, however, the major environmental issue isenvironmental threats to health. These examplesand European Eurobarometer survey of attitudestowards the environment demonstrate how readilydata for this indicator can be made available.

(d) What are the limitations? Data on attitudes sufferfrom the same problems that all surveys andquestionnaires suffer from – are the right questionsasked; is the survey representative? Results may beflawed or misinterpreted unless these fundamentalquestions are addressed. Indeed, a clearunderstanding of public awareness may only berevealed by means of intensive sociologicalresearch, which, eventually, may also result in thedevelopment of more robust indicators in thiscategory. Data on public participation may bemore reliable but in some countries volunteers’activity is dependent on the leadership of a fewindividuals. Across Europe, participation inbiodiversity-related activities is likely to be related

to economic status.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? This indicator issurvey based and therefore easily adapted to anyunit of aggregation.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? Thisindicator is highly complementary to otherindicators.

(g) Is it cost-effective? It is very inexpensive.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? This type ofindicator is already being used and could readily beimplemented across Europe. However, thequestions used in public surveys must be carefullyconstructed and their limitations acknowledged.Furthermore, the influence of a range of factorssuch as economic status on the participation of thepublic in biodiversity-related activities must also beacknowledged.

A.15 Patents

We have not assessed this indicator.

A.16 Living planet index

The Living Planet Index (LPI) uses time series data tocalculate average rates of change in a large number ofpopulations of terrestrial, freshwater and marinevertebrate species. The dataset contains about 3000population time series for over 1100 species The firstindex was published in the WWF Living Planet Report1998 (Loh and Wackemagel 1998) and has beenupdated subsequently, most recently in 2004 ( (Loh et al2004). The LPI aims to measure average trends inpopulations of vertebrate species from around the worldsince 1970. All species in the index are vertebrates forreasons of data availability: time series data forinvertebrate or plant populations exist, but for relativelyfew, geographically-restricted locations.


(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? People are concernedabout declining abundance of birds and fishpopulations and the LPI, as promoted by WWF, hasbeen a very effective tool for communicating withboth the general public and policy-makers.Because it is focused on population trends invertebrate populations that are relatively sensitiveto environmental changes and to vertebrate (fish)populations that are harvested, the index has goodbiological relevance.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Any and all drivers contribute to changes in thisindex. To discriminate among drivers the samplingfor the index would need to be carefully organisedto compare trends among populations of the samespecies in areas where drivers of change wereknown to differ.

(c) What data are available? The LPI is based onpopulation trends in selected species, presumablybased on data availability. The index as defined isapplicable at the global scale, not at smaller scales,though comparable indices could be defined forlocal, national, and EU scales.

(d) What are its limitations? The LPI is a measure ofglobal biodiversity only as far as trends invertebrate species populations are representativeof wider trends in all species, genes andecosystems. In addition, as currently formulated,LPI values may reflect the distribution of availabledata as much as the biological status of natural

systems. This problem could be avoided given abalanced sampling strategy and adequate data.The index can be made to work well at the globalscale (Loh et al 2005), and applications would bepossible at smaller scales but would require othersets of species to be selected (often they would beavailable). One drawback for Europe is that themeasures are not necessarily sensitive to changesin forest ecosystems (eg often the species that aremonitored or for which data are readily availableare habitat generalists, which are not greatlyaffected by intensive forest management, whichmay however change the forest ecosystemsfundamentally).

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? In principle theLPI can be disaggregated but in practice, as theindex is presently defined and used, it cannotbecause it is meant to be applied at the globalscale. In general disaggregation is a very usefulfeature of measures such as the LPI. However, thecomponent datasets need to be designed to bedisaggregatable in a particular way – ie each sub-element should be sampled so that on its own it isgiving an unbiased measure, with adequatesample size.

(f) Is it complementary to other indicators? To someextent the information on species abundance anddistribution can be approximated by informationon the spatial extent of the habitats of the focalspecies. The LPI is very complementary in relationto many other indicators apart from habitatmeasures.


Figure 6 The LPI for Terrestrial (T), Freshwater (FW) and Marine (M) species, with 95%confidence intervals

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.01970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

(g) Is it cost-effective? As long as the measure is basedon data drawn from the published literature, it canbe very cost-effective. Once new data and fieldwork are needed to gather information on theright species and places, it could become verycostly.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? The indexcannot be implemented immediately asinformation would need to be sourced andappropriate sampling planned. Retrospectivevalues may be calculated which could be anadvantage.

A.17 Natural capital index

The natural capital index is an integrated indicatordeveloped by RIVM to measure the condition ofbiodiversity. It equals the product of the percentage ofthe remaining area of natural ecosystems with thequality of the remaining habitat. The quality is measuredon the basis of the abundance of a group of selectedspecies relative to a baseline level. This indicator is not apart of the CBD indicators, although it can becomposed by combining the extent of ecosystems withspecies abundance.

(a) Does it measure things people care about and hasit biological relevance? Because it measures thepopulation and ecosystem components ofbiodiversity, this indicator is intrinsically relatedwith ecosystem services that depend on speciesrichness. It is also important for existence values ofbiodiversity. It is an improvement over the simpleextent of ecosystems indicator (A.1 above) in thatit also measures the impact of drivers directly inspecies populations. However, this indicatorseparates the contribution of non-naturalecosystems towards the conservation ofbiodiversity from that of natural ecosystems, whichneed to be calculated separately.

(b) What are the drivers that this indicator measures?Land-use change is the main driver measured bythis indicator, but it also measures the effects of

direct exploitation, invasive species, climatechange, etc.

(c) What data are available? The data needed are acombination of the data on the extent ofecosystems with data on trends of populations ofselected species, but with the complication ofrequiring data on the baseline year. In Europe, wehave very few populations for which we have datagoing back more than a couple of decades (seealso indicators A.2 and A.3). Data quality is highfor the extent of ecosystems and intermediate forthe population abundances.

(d) What are the limitations? First there is the problemof how to define the baseline. A more recentbaseline provides more data on populationabundances but may be erroneous because thepopulations could have decreased significantlyprior to that baseline. Second, the result willdepend on the group of populations selected.Third, it may miss species extinctions or quasi-extinctions as long as many of the species in theselected group increase in population levels.Fourth, it assumes that populations are restrictedto natural habitats.

(e) Can the indicator be aggregated? The indicatorperfectly (dis)aggregates values by ecosystem,sector or species group but cannot beimplemented in some countries because of datashortage.

(f) Is it complementary to other measures? It gives thesame information as the combination of theindicators of populations and ecosystems, but in amore condensed and visual way.

(g) Is it cost-effective? It will be an expensive indicatorto implement across all member states in acomparable way.

(h) Can it be implemented/used now? For somecountries it can (and is). It will require aconsiderable amount of time and resources toimplement in all member states.


B.1 The international policy framework

International biodiversity policy in Europe has developedover the last few decades and is being led by a numberof key international organizations, such as the EuropeanUnion, the Council of Europe and the United NationsEnvironment Programme. Where originally policyinstruments for biodiversity conservation weredeveloped in isolation, today there is a strong movetowards integration of approaches and creation ofsynergy between policies at various geographical andsectoral levels. The following paragraphs highlight themost important international policies for Europe, whileindicating their interrelations.

At the global level, the key policy framework is theUnited Nations Convention on Biological Diversity,adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (UNEP, 1992). Theobjectives of this Convention, abbreviated CBD or RioConvention, are ‘the conservation of biological diversity,the sustainable use of its components and the fair andequitable sharing of the benefits arising out of theutilization of genetic resources’. The implementation ofthe CBD is directed by the Conference of the Parties(COP), which agrees decisions on priority activities andtopics. An important component of the CBD work isembedded in the ‘Strategic Plan for the CBD’ (DecisionVI/26, CBD 2002). In its Strategic Plan’s missionstatement Parties commit themselves to a more effectiveand coherent implementation of the three objectives ofthe Convention, to achieve by 2010 a significantreduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at theglobal, regional and national level as a contribution topoverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth.This target was subsequently endorsed by the WorldSummit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in2002.

Other important and complementary policy instrumentsthat focus on biodiversity components at global levelinclude the Ramsar Convention on the conservation ofwetlands, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, theWashington Convention on International Trade inEndangered Species (CITES), and the Bonn Conventionon the Conservation of Migratory Species of WildAnimals.

The pan-European implementation of the CBD isframed by the Pan-European Biological and LandscapeDiversity Strategy (PEBLDS; Council of Europe et al,1996). Endorsed by the European government leadersat the ‘Environment for Europe’ conference in Sofia,1995, this Strategy increasingly forms the translation ofthe CBD for Europe. At the 5th Ministerial conference‘Environment for Europe’ (Kyiv, 2003) the KyivResolution on Biodiversity was adopted, which

formulates the pan-European target for 2010 as well asnine more specific targets for action.

Three other policy instruments at pan-European level areof high importance and are closely linked to the PEBLDSprocess: the Bern Convention on the Conservation ofEuropean Wildlife and Natural Habitats, the EuropeanLandscape Convention, and the Ministerial Conferenceson the Protection of Forests in Europe.

The European Union has the most legally bindingpolicy instruments with regards to biodiversity. The twokey pieces of legislation are the Birds and HabitatsDirectives. Together they form a solid basis for theconservation of species and habitats of EuropeanCommunity interest. They also set out to establish anetwork of protected areas, called Natura 2000.

Also within the EU there is increasing integration ofbiodiversity policy into other sectoral policies. Forexample, the implementation of the CBD at EU level isforeseen through the European Community BiodiversityStrategy and its four sectoral Biodiversity Action Plans.Priorities for implementation have been agreed duringthe Malahide stakeholder conference ‘Biodiversity in theEU: Sustaining lives, sustaining livelihoods’ in May 2004.In a broader sense environmental and biodiversityconcerns are integrated in more general EU policy, suchas the Lisbon Strategy.

The Lisbon Strategy is a commitment to bring abouteconomic, social and environmental renewal in the EU.In March 2000, the European Council in Lisbon set out aten-year strategy to make the EU the world’s mostdynamic and competitive economy. Under the strategy,a stronger economy should drive job creation alongsidesocial and environmental policies that ensure sustainabledevelopment and social inclusion.

The Lisbon Strategy touches on almost all of the EU’seconomic, social and environmental activities. TheEuropean Commission’s annual Spring Report examinesthe Strategy in detail. The Spring Report is the onlydocument on the agenda of the Spring EuropeanCouncil, where EU Heads of State and Governmentassess the progress of the strategy and decide futurepriorities in order to realize the Lisbon targets.

Progress in achieving the Lisbon Strategy objectives isreported by way of annual Spring Reports. These reportsare based on a set of ‘structural indicators’. TheStructural Indicators are compiled into a long list and ashort list. The latter is based on political priorities of theLisbon Strategy. To date the short list of 14 indicatorsincludes five three environmental indicators. There is nobiodiversity indicator included, although in November


Annex B: Policy context: an overview of biodiversity policies ineurope

2004 the Farmland Bird Index was adopted as an EUlong-list Structural Indicator, in addition to the‘Protected Areas for Biodiversity’.

The Gothenburg Council in 2001 added anenvironmental component to the Lisbon Strategy, whichwas largely geared towards economic sustainability. Itadopted the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development.The implementation of the Sustainable DevelopmentStrategy is evaluated in annual synthesis reports anduses a set of 12 headline indicators for sustainabledevelopment.

Other important Directives and EU policies forbiodiversity conservation include for example the WaterFramework Directive and the reformed CommonAgricultural Policy, including the Rural DevelopmentRegulation.

The 2010 biodiversity target

2001 European Union: EU Strategy for SustainableDevelopment adopted by the European Council inGothenburg. One of the headline objectives aspart of the priority for action ‘Manage naturalresources more responsibly’ says: ‘Protect andrestore habitats and natural systems and halt theloss of biodiversity by 2010.’ One of the measuresat EU level to reach this objective reads ‘TheCommission will establish a system of biodiversityindicators by 2003.’

2002 Global level: Strategic Plan for the Convention onBiological Diversity adopted by the 6th Conferenceof the Parties to the CBD in The Hague. Its missionsays: ‘Parties commit themselves to a moreeffective and coherent implementation of thethree objectives of the Convention, to achieve by2010 a significant reduction of the current rate ofbiodiversity loss at the global, regional andnational level as a contribution to povertyalleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth.’This target is also included in the World Summiton Sustainable Development Plan ofImplementation (Johannesburg).

2003 Pan-Europe: The Kyiv Resolution on Biodiversity, asadopted by the UNECE Environment for Europeministerial conference, holds the followingparagraph: ‘We, the European Ministers ofEnvironment and Heads of Delegations of theStates participating in the process of the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity,reinforce our objective to halt the loss ofbiological diversity at all levels by the year 2010,and to work towards it through concerted actionsand a joint commitment to achieve the followingkey targets: […] Biodiversity Monitoring andIndicators

2008 By 2008, a coherent European programme onbiodiversity monitoring and reporting, facilitatedby the European Biodiversity Monitoring andIndicator Framework, will be operational in thepan European region, in support of nature andbiodiversity policies, including by 2006 an agreedcore set of biodiversity indicators developed withthe active participation of the relevantstakeholders.’

B.2 Current biodiversity indicator initiatives

This section gives a brief overview of the internationalinitiatives that have been developed to support andimplement the core sets of biodiversity indicators thathave been agreed at global, pan-European and EU levels(see B.1 above).

As said, the 7th COP of the CBD provided a majorpolitical breakthrough with regards to biodiversityindicators. At this conference in Kuala Lumpur inFebruary 2004, heads of state and government leadersagreed a limited number of trial indicators for assessingprogress towards and communicating the 2010 targetat the global level. Incorporated in Decision VII/30, aprovisional list of indicators in Annex I to the Decisionincludes eight ‘indicators for immediate testing’ and 13‘possible indicators for development by SBSTTA orworking groups’.

During a meeting on 19-22 October 2004 in Montrealan Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) reviewedthe use of the indicators listed in Decision VII/30 andidentified indicators for the sub-targets as formulated tofacilitate coherence among the CBD’s programmes ofwork. The review of the indicators was partly done byconsidering a draft of the Second Global BiodiversityOutlook, which will be the global indicator-based reporton the state of biodiversity. The meeting confirmed thelisting of the indicators for immediate testing andproposed speeding up the work on five out of the 13indicators for further development (table 2).

The report of the AHTEG meeting will be submitted tothe 11th SBSTTA meeting, to be held in February 2005.

At the pan-European level a core set of biodiversityindicators, based on the CBD list, was discussed duringa joint meeting of the European EnvironmentalInformation and Observation Network (EIONET), theInternational Working Group on Biodiversity Monitoringand Indicators (IWG-BioMIN) and the Pan-EuropeanBiological and Landscape Diversity Strategy (PEBLDS) inCopenhagen in April 2004. The list includes both theCBD indicators for immediate testing as well as thosefor further development, but it only focuses on stateand trends in biodiversity. Six indicators are included(table 2). The proposed list is submitted to the PEBLDSCouncil for approval in February 2005.


The European Commission has developed a set ofBiodiversity Headline Indicators, which is based on theCBD list of indicators. The EU list was endorsed at thestakeholder conference on biodiversity in Malahide (seeabove) and subsequently approved by the EuropeanEnvironment Council in June 2004.

Following the Joint meeting of EIONET/IWG-BioMIN andPEBLDS mentioned above, a coordination team of EEA,ECNC and UNEP-WCMC drafted a work plan for theimplementation of the European biodiversity indicators(both EU and pan-European sets), which will be carriedout by expert groups for the individual indicators. Thisinitiative is called IEBI2010 (Implementing European 2010Biodiversity Indicators) and will be starting in January2005. The work by the current EASAC biodiversity

indicator project group will feed in to this process.

It is worth noting that a specific interest for annualreporting on the state of Europe’s biodiversity has beenexpressed by the European Parliament in its resolutionon biodiversity reporting of 14 March 2002. This interestwas repeated by a Parliamentary question on 7 January2003, which specifically addressed the need forindicators for this purpose, and an answer by EuropeanEnvironment Commissioner Margot Wallström on 11February 2003 explaining the steps taken to this effect.As a follow-up, the European Environment Agency andthe European Centre for Nature Conservation organiseda seminar in the European Parliament in March 2004 onthe possibilities of joining forces in Europe to achieve anannual biodiversity report (ECNC, 2004).


Table 2 Summary of international biodiversity indicators

CBD Pan-Europe EU biodiversity headline indicators(state and trend indicators only)

Trends in extent of selected • State and change (trends) of main Trends in extent of selected biomes,biomes, ecosystems, and habitat types in Europe ecosystems and habitatshabitats • State and change (trends) in special

habitat types (EU Habitats Directive, Bern Convention)

• State and change in surface area of selected ecosystems and habitats

Trends in abundance and Trends of representative selection of Trends in abundance and distribution ofdistribution of selected species populations associated Trends in abundance and distributionspecies with different ecosystems of selected species

Coverage of protected areas Protected areas as percentage of Coverage of protected areasnational territory by type of ecosystems,by category/designation type

Change in status of Change in status of threatened species Change in status of threatened and/orthreatened species on EU and pan-European red lists protected species

Trends in genetic diversity • Crops and breed genetic diversity Trends in genetic diversity of of domesticated animals, • Total number of crop varieties/livestock domesticated animals, cultivated plants,cultivated plants, and fish breeds for the main crops/livestock and fish species of major socioeconomicspecies of major categories registered and certified for importancesocioeconomic importance marketing, incl. native and non-native

species and landraces

Area of forest, agricultural Area of forest, agricultural, fishery andand aquaculture ecosystems aquaculture ecosystems under under sustainable sustainable managementmanagement

Nitrogen deposition Nitrogen deposition

Numbers and cost of alien Numbers and costs of invasive alieninvasions species

Impact of climate change on biodiversity

CBD Pan-Europe EU biodiversity headline indicators(state and trend indicators only)

Marine Trophic Index Marine trophic index

Water quality of freshwater Water quality in aquatic ecosystemsecosystems

Connectivity/Fragmentation Connectivity/Fragmentation ofof ecosystems ecosystems

Status and trends of linguistic diversity and numbers of speakers of indigenous languages

Official development assistance provided in support of the Convention

Patents (to be developed)

Funding to biodiversity

Public awareness and participation

Bold = Indicator considered ready for immediate testing and useBold italic = Indicator considered ready for immediate testing and use by the AHTEG and thereforerecommended for upgrading


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Annex D: EASAC project group

ChairProfessor Georgina Mace Zoological Society of London

MembersMr Ben Delbaere European Centre for Nature ConservationProfessor Ilkka Hanski University of HelsinkiProfessor Jerry Harrison UNEP World Conservation Monitoring CentreProfessor Francisco Garcia Novo University of SevilleDr Henrique Pereira University of LisbonDr Allan Watt Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, BanchoryProfessor January Weiner Jagiellonian University, Krakow

SecretariatProfessor John Murlis EASAC



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