4th Meeting of the UK Biodiversity Indicators Forum

On Monday 16 October 2006, the fourth UK Biodiversity Indicators Forum was held at Defra Offices, 3-8 Whitehall Place, London.

Objectives of the day:

Awareness raising, partnership building, development of common understanding and co-ordination of UK biodiversity indicators work.
Clarification of the roles and responsibilities for UK CBD implementation and measurement of progress towards the 2010 biodiversity targets (global and European)
Promotion of co-ordinated action on indicators and measuring the 2010 target

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 it was agreed to:

'achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth'

The 7th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed a framework of indicators (Decision VII.30) to measure the acheivement of this target. This was further elaborated by DecisionVIII.15 at the 8th Conference of the Parties. GEF funding has subsequently been agreed to fund co-ordination of the development of the global set of indicators by the Biodiversity Indicator Partnership. There is an expection that the indicators will be published in the edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO).

The Streamlining European 2010 Biodiversity Indicators project is developing a suite of indicators against the CBD framework, to measure progress at European and Pan-European scales. In June 2006 the European Commission launched its Biodiversity Communication, as a political commitment to achieving the target, and an action plan of work needed.

Within the UK the Standing Committee of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan has agreed the set of indicators which the UK should use to show progress towards the 2010 target. The challenge now is to implement them and publish regular updates.

The meeting on will provide an overview of developments in the production of indicators to show progress towards meeting the 2010 target, at global, European and UK scales.

Papers:

Agenda and Presentation

Indicator website links (PDF, 31 kb)

UK Biodiversity Indicators – Paper UKBPSC 05-08 (PDF, 354 kb)

Measuring the 2010 biodiversity target in the UK (PDF, 37 kb)

Meeting Report (PDF, 52 kb)