The Convention on Biological Diversity: How does Nitrogen fit into the Plans?

Abstract

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognises five direct drivers of biodiversity loss: habitat change, climate change, invasive species, over-exploitation, and pollution, including by excessive nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) nutrients. Nitrogen was part of the flexible framework of indicators, under the ‘threats’ focal area, established to measure progress towards the CBDs target of achieving a ‘significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss’ at global, regional and national level by 2010. Nitrogen indicators were established at various scales, including N deposition at global scale and critical loads at European scale. The target was not reached for almost all the indicators. Measuring, and addressing changes in, ecosystem services is likely to be a key aspect of any post-2010 target, and is an area in which this workshop could help the CBD: by providing ideas on how N inputs can be effectively measured at a variety of scales, and critically, what the impact of different levels of N (in its various forms) is on biodiversity, at a variety of scales.