Current Rate Of Biodiversity Loss Research Articles

Policy-response towards achieving the biodiversity targets – 2010 and beyond: research questions for developing indicators to assess progress

Triggered by the unprecedented loss of biodiversity, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the 2010 biodiversity target, that is, “to achieve, by 2010, a signifi cant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national level, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefi t of all life on Earth”. This target is now being revised as a post-2010 target. Whatever the target may, be- 2010 or beyond, the challenge step is to put mechanisms in place to track progress towards the targets. There is a large body of trend indicators as well as response indicators for assessing progress towards the target. In this paper, based on a conceptual framework and available information, we reviewed the existing scenario on the biodiversity targets, which resulted in a set of criteria and a set of policy-relevant research questions to be further developed as policy-response indicators for assessing progress that the countries are making towards achieving the biodiversity targets. The criteria and research questions are grouped under four policy areas: implementation mechanism of global biodiversity conventions at the national level; integration of biodiversity into policies and programs of other sectors; public awareness and support, and availability of resources to work towards the targets. These indicators need to be measured at national level and monitored globally.

China's Progress toward the Significant Reduction of the Rate of Biodiversity Loss

In 2002, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a decision “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss.” Comprehensive assessment of the progress toward this “significant reduction” is rare at the national level. We therefore developed national indicators and time-series data sets to evaluate whether China had made progress toward the 2010 biodiversity target, and found that considerable progress has been made: Forest resources have increased stably since 1989, the integrity of marine ecosystems has improved since 1997, water quality has remained stable, and desertified land is less extensive than it used to be as a result of various conservation initiatives. However, trends toward the loss of grasslands, threatened species, and genetic resources were not effectively checked. It is imperative that China undertake a more active and integrated strategy for biodiversity conservation to stem projected increases in wastewater discharges, nutrient load...

2010 and all that—looking forward to biodiversity conservation in 2011 and beyond

In 2002 the 6th Conference of the Parties to the CBD— a global treaty dating from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992—adopted a Strategic Plan with the mission statement ‘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 2010 Biodiversity Target, as it became known, was later incorporated into Goal 7 (Ensure environmental sustainability) of the Millennium Development Goals (UN, 2008). In 2002 the Target year may have seemed a long way off, and perhaps the statement was intended to be more political than quantitative as there was no baseline against which to measure it. But were there any conservationists who had a realistic expectation, even in 2002, that the CBD’s target could be achieved in some way?

Disentangling multiple predator effects in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research

Disentangling multiple predator effects in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research

The Main Results of the Ninth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity

AbstractThe Ninth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP9) in May 2008 in Bonn was one of the major international environmental meetings in 2008. Its decisions significantly advance global biodiversity politics on a range of critical issues and thereby help achieving the global target of substantially reducing current rates of biodiversity loss by 2010. This article describes the main decision adopted by COP9 on biofuels, marine biodiversity, biodiversity and climate change, access and benefit-sharing and the science-policy interface of international biodiversity politics.

Getting biodiversity intactness indices right: ensuring that ‘biodiversity’ reflects ‘diversity’

AbstractThe 2010 biodiversity target of a ‘significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss’ presents challenges for effective measurement of changes in global/regional biodiversity. A simple ‘biodiversity intactness index’ (BII) is attractive in using available data and expert opinion, but is seen to be only weakly linked to ‘biodiversity’ in its usual sense of ‘variation’. An example illustrates how an improved BII score could result even when there are large species losses. A family of alternative biodiversity ‘representativeness indices’ better reflect variation. They use the same readily available information, plus simple species–area relationships (SAR) and genetic diversity curves. A new genetic‐diversity abundance‐fraction curve, like SAR, is linear in log–log space. The new representativeness indices incorporate, through range‐abundance curves, the abundance fraction estimates normally used for BII. Land use or climate change impacts therefore can reflect partial rather than total biodiversity losses at localities. Estimates of biodiversity gains/losses using these indices enable a novel regional planning‐based approach for addressing the 2010 target.

Creation and use of a national inventory of crop wild relatives

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2010 target of achieving 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 is particularly pertinent for crop wild relatives (CWR). These taxa are directly associated with wealth creation and food security as they include the wild crop progenitors possessing many beneficial traits that can be bred into crops to address the changing environmental and market demands. These species are being eroded yet they have been widely neglected by national agencies because agricultural agencies generally have no responsibility for conservation and ecological conservation agencies tend to focus their efforts on habitat or rare and threatened taxa conservation. If the CBD 2010 target is to be achieved for CWR taxa there is a need for a complex interdisciplinary approach that outlines what diversity is present, what threatens that diversity and how it might be best conserved for use by future generations. When attempting to address these issues within the United Kingdom several key topics were identified: (1) creation of a national CWR inventory, (2) analysis of the national CWR inventory content, (3) national patterns of CWR distribution, (4) threat status for CWR diversity, (5) assessment of current conservation actions, (6) identification of priority sites for CWR conservation, and (7) creation of CWR conservation action plans. These issues are used to formulate an effective national conservation strategy for UK CWR diversity.

Foreword

Uganda is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This is a reflection of the country's commitment to the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity. Further, in decision V1/26 the Conference of Parties, in which Uganda participated, adopted the strategic plan for the CBD. Parties committed themselves to a more effective and coherent implementation of the objectives of the convention to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in 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. In recent years, national policies have been reviewed by the line ministries and/or lead agencies to ensure that they conform to the provisions of CBD. Below ground biodiversity (BGBD) contributes a wide range of essential services to the sustainable functions of all ecosystems, by acting as the primary driving agents of nutrient cycling, regulating the dynamics of soil organic matter, soil carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emission, modifying soil physical structure and water regime, enhancing the amount and efficiency of nutrient acquisition by the vegetation through mycorrhiza and nitrogen fixing bacteria and influencing plant health through the interaction of pathogens and pests with natural predators and parasites. These services are not only essential to the function of natural ecosystems but also constitute an important resource for the sustainable management of agricultural ecosystems. One of the activities undertaken during the project development process was country documentation of the state of knowledge on the issues related to conservation and management of below ground diversity and capacity building. This publication consists of five papers, each addressing a key BGBD functional group. The first deals with macrofauna, the second with soil pests and pathogens, the third with rhizosphere microbiota, the fourth with soil macrosymbionts and the fifth with decomposer microbiota. The publication will no doubt guide the formulation of strategies for conservation and sustainable management of BGBD in Uganda. The publication presents part of the findings of the global project Conservation and Management of BGBD (CSM-BGBD). The project is implemented in seven tropical countries, namely Brazil, Cote d'Ivore, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and Uganda. It is executed by TSBF-CIAT, with co-financing from the Global Environmental Facility and implementation support from the United Nations Environmental Programme. The authors appreciate the support of Makerere University, the national executing agency, and the National Agricultural Research Organization, the collaborating institution. The project's national and global co-ordination offices rendered invaluable assistance.

A Global Indicator for Biological Invasion

"Trends in invasive alien species" is one of only two indicators of threat to biodiversity that form part of the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) framework for monitoring progress toward its "2010 target" (i.e., the commitment to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss). To date, however, there is no fully developed indicator for invasive alien species (IAS) that combines trends, derived from a standard set of methods, across species groups, ecosystems, and regions. Here we provide a rationale for the form and characteristics of an indicator of trends in IAS that will meet the 2010 framework goal and targets for this indicator. We suggest single and composite indicators that include problem-status and management-status measures that are designed to be flexible, readily disaggregated, and as far as possible draw on existing data. The single indicators at national and global scales are number of IAS and numbers of operational management plans for IAS. Global trends in IAS are measured as the progress of nations toward the targets of stabilizing IAS numbers and the implementation of IAS management plans. The proposed global indicator thus represents a minimum information set that most directly addresses the indicator objective and simultaneously aims to maximize national participation. This global indicator now requires testing to assess its accuracy, sensitivity, and tractability. Although it may not be possible to achieve the desired objective for a global indicator of biological invasion by 2010 as comprehensively as desired, it seems possible to obtain trend estimates for a component of the taxa, ecosystems, and regions involved. Importantly, current indicator development initiatives will also contribute to developing the mechanisms necessary for monitoring global trends in IAS beyond 2010.

Threat and decline in fishes: an indicator of marine biodiversity

Recent policy commitments aim to reduce biodiversity loss and integrate environmental concerns into fisheries management. However, there are few operational indicators for reporting biodiversity trends and judging progress in relation to management objectives. Here we develop a threat indicator based on the population status of a suite of 23 North Sea fishes from 1982 to 2001 estimated using World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List decline criteria. The composite indicator was calculated from the weighted average of the threat scores of individual species in each year and varies from 0 to 3, where a score of 3 is equivalent to each species qualifying as "critically endangered". The proportion of threatened fishes, their degree of threat, and the composite indicator value increased steadily over time. The composite indicator value has been >1 since the late 1990s, equivalent to all species meeting the "vulnerable" criterion. A suitable reference trajectory, consistent with the World Summit on Sustainable Development commitment to "achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss" would be a significant reduction in the rate of increase in this indicator before 2010, a limit reference point could be 1 (all species vulnerable) and a target reference point could be 0 (no threatened species).

Landscape fragmentation, biodiversity loss and the societal response

Declining biodiversity is a major environmental problem everywhere on Earth, including developed regions such as Western Europe and the USA. European leaders have recognized this and set the target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010, under the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development that was adopted by the European Council in 2001. World leaders agreed upon a substantially less ambitious goal at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa: to significantly reduce the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The practical challenge for both goals is to measure the rate of change in biodiversity, to determine whether the decline is slowing or has stopped. This relates to the task of defining, in operational terms, what biodiversity is. The causes of biodiversity decline must be understood in order to devise effective countermeasures. None of this can take place without the participation of society at large, who have to be convinced about the importance of biodiversity if there is to be any real hope of implementing meaningful measures. So what is biodiversity? The cynical answer is: everything that is good in nature. This captures the point that biodiversity is not a simple concept, has never been since its conception (Wilson & Peter, 1988), and never will be. The official definition is: “The variability among living organisms from all sources, including, inter alia , terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems” (Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992). My personal interpretation is that there is no biodiversity loss in a particular landscape when there is no obvious decline in the abundances of large numbers of species living in that landscape. This is based on the observation that a range of species with diverse …

Developing indicators for European birds

The global pledge to deliver 'a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010' is echoed in a number of regional and national level targets. There is broad consensus, however, that in the absence of conservation action, biodiversity will continue to be lost at a rate unprecedented in the recent era. Remarkably, we lack a basic system to measure progress towards these targets and, in particular, we lack standard measures of biodiversity and procedures to construct and assess summary statistics. Here, we develop a simple classification of biodiversity indicators to assist their development and clarify purpose. We use European birds, as example taxa, to show how robust indicators can be constructed and how they can be interpreted. We have developed statistical methods to calculate supranational, multi-species indices using population data from national annual breeding bird surveys in Europe. Skilled volunteers using standardized field methods undertake data collection where methods and survey designs differ slightly across countries. Survey plots tend to be widely distributed at a national level, covering many bird species and habitats with reasonable representation. National species' indices are calculated using log-linear regression, which allows for plot turnover. Supranational species' indices are constructed by combining the national species' indices weighted by national population sizes of each species. Supranational, multi-species indicators are calculated by averaging the resulting indices. We show that common farmland birds in Europe have declined steeply over the last two decades, whereas woodland birds have not. Evidence elsewhere shows that the main driver of farmland bird declines is increased agricultural intensification. We argue that the farmland bird indicator is a useful surrogate for trends in other elements of biodiversity in this habitat.

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

At the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, 190 countries endorsed a commitment to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels. A wide range of approaches is available to the monitoring of progress towards this objective. The strengths and weaknesses of many of these approaches are considered, with special attention being given to the proposed and existing indicators described in the other papers in this issue. Recommendations are made about the development of indicators. Most existing and proposed indicators use data collected for other purposes, which may be unrepresentative. In the short term, much remains to be done in expanding the databases and improving the statistical techniques that underpin these indicators to minimize potential biases. In the longer term, indicators based on unrepresentative data should be replaced with equivalents based on carefully designed sampling programmes. Many proposed and existing indicators do not connect clearly with human welfare and they are unlikely to engage the interest of governments, businesses and the public until they do so. The extent to which the indicators already proposed by parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are sufficient is explored by reference to the advice an imaginary scientific consultant from another planet might give. This exercise reveals that the range of taxa and biomes covered by existing indicators is incomplete compared with the knowledge we need to protect our interests. More fundamentally, our understanding of the mechanisms linking together the status of biodiversity, Earth system processes, human decisions and actions, and ecosystem services impacting human welfare is still too crude to allow us to infer reliably that actions taken to conserve biodiversity and protect ecosystem services are well chosen and effectively implemented. The involvement of social and Earth system scientists, as well as biologists, in collaborative research programmes to build and parameterize models of the Earth system to elucidate these mechanisms is a high priority.

A Framework for Improved Monitoring of Biodiversity: Responses to the World Summit on Sustainable Development

Abstract: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) endorsed the Hague Ministerial Declaration that calls for a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national levels by 2010. We argue that there is a shortage of standardized, regularly repeated measurements of the state of biomes and their biota that could be used to monitor progress toward this goal. In particular, there are few data that directly or indirectly measure the delivery of ecosystem services that depend on biodiversity. Given the link made in the declaration between biodiversity and poverty alleviation, this deficiency is of special concern. We suggest that greater attention should be given to defining the questions about changes in biodiversity that are relevant to CBD and WSSD goals and propose a framework through which the links between these questions and programs of monitoring and research could be made stronger and more explicit. The framework consists of three stages. First is a scoping stage in which reviews of existing knowledge and interactions with stakeholders help to define the subject of the evaluation and lead to a preliminary model of the system of interest. Second is a design stage in which the types of measurement and sampling strategies are selected by evaluating their fitness for purpose and the resources available to conduct the work. The final stage is implementation and reporting, which considers data collection and storage and the evaluation and dissemination of results. This framework can be applied across a broad range of biodiversity attributes and scales and, if combined with a systematic review of the most important and relevant questions about changes in biodiversity, would improve the coverage, fitness for purpose, and value for money of biodiversity monitoring. Slowing the rate of loss of biodiversity requires conservation action, but to know where this is most needed and whether it is working requires better and more comprehensive monitoring.

Population diversity and ecosystem services

The current rate of biodiversity loss threatens to disrupt greatly the functioning of ecosystems, with potentially significant consequences for humanity. The magnitude of the loss is generally measured with the use of species extinction rates, an approach that understates the severity of the problem and masks some of its most important consequences. Here, we propose a major expansion of this focus to include population diversity: considering changes in the size, number, distribution and genetic composition of populations and the implications of those changes for the functioning of ecosystems and the provision of ecosystem services. We also outline the key components of population diversity and describe a new approach to delineating a population unit that explicitly links it to the services that it provides

The Qualitative Analysis of Community Food Webs: Implications for Wildlife Management and Conservation

Biodiversity, the array of organisms living on earth, is experiencing now, more than ever, the uncontrolled assault of human activities. The consequence of this aggressive behaviour is that populations of plants and animals are being decimated across a broad geographic scale. Reducing the current rate of biodiversity loss has become an urgent task, and contributions are expected from many disciplines: ecology, economy, social sciences, political sciences and others. The ecological side of this challenge is filled with many unresolved issues still open to research, among which the understanding of how populations react to environmental stress occupies a central place.In this article the role of community structure as a factor conditioning the response of populations to environmental disturbances is discussed. Four community food webs are examined through the use of a qualitative technique called loop analysis. Results obtained suggest that the structure of the interactions can be an appropriate locus of explanation for patterns of population response to environmental stress. Yet, complex functional networks may show counterintuitive behaviours that challenge our comprehension of effects of disturbances upon ecological communities, and yield results of interventions aimed to protect wildlife uncertain.