MOL Press

Last week, an ad-hoc technical expert group of the CBD met in Geneve to advise CBD on a small set of indicators that could be used to assess progress towards the Aichi targets. GEO BON presented a new generation of indicators based on integrating information from a small set of essential biodiversity variables (http://www.geobon.org/Downloads/brochures/2015/GBCI_Version1.1_low.pdf).

The indicators, developed in collaboration with GEO BON partners Map of Life and CSIRO, were the Species Habitat Indices (Target 5 and 12), the Biodiversity Habitat Index (Target 5), the Species Protection Index Target 11), the Protected Area Representativeness and Connectedness Indices (Target 11), the Global Ecosytem Restoration Index (Target 15), and the Species Status Information Index (Target 19). They are based on global datasets for 4 EBVs: Species Distributions, Taxonomic Diversity (gamma diversity), Ecosystem Extent, and Primary Productivity. The indicators were very well received at the AHTEG, and were adopted as specific examples of indicators for these targets. They also illustrate the power of EBVs as a modelled layer between direct observations and indicators and its potential to generate global indicators and spatial explicit datasets.

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