Download Title Sub title - Secretary of State for Environment, Food

Providing a synoptic
assessment of biodiversity
change (providing a general
view of the whole)
Mark Stevenson
May 2014
Contents
• Consider why we collect and report on
biodiversity change
• Consider the gaps in our ability to
report on biodiversity change
• Pose some questions for discussion
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Why do we report biodiversity change?
• Reporting to the Convention on Biological
Diversity
– Aichi 12. Improved status of threatened species
– Aichi 14. Ecosystems that provide essential
services safeguarded
– Aichi 15. Contribution to carbon stocks enhanced
• Reporting progress with domestic strategies
and legislative commitments
– Biodiversity 2020 outcome 3: an overall
improvement in the status of our wildlife
– Habitats and Birds Directive reporting
• Understanding the causes and consequences
of change
– Pressures on biodiversity
– Consequences of change for delivery of services
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Gaps in our capacity to report change
• UK NEA (2011).
Significant biodiversity
loss has been
documented in the UK
over the last 50 years,
but monitoring data for
a number of
biodiversity groups is
poor, precluding an
assessment of status
and trends.
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Questions
• If we want a more synoptic view of biodiversity change
and understand the causes and consequences of that
change then we need to:
– Provide trends on a wider range of species
• Make more of the data we have; or
• Collect more data
(Or we need to assure ourselves that what we can report on is
representative of a wider range); and
– Collect or collate additional environmental and socio-economic
data that allows us to relate biodiversity change to pressures
and ecosystem services
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Questions
• Can we make more of the data we have?
– Can we employ new analytical techniques to increase the range of species
that can be reported? Or to say more about change in functional groups? If
so, what should the priorities be?
• Can we improve our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem
change, so that we can interpret our existing data better?
• Do we need a strategic framework for prioritising investment in monitoring and
surveillance? If so, what would it look like and who should develop it?
• Do we need to better understand how change in one taxonomic or functional
group is linked to another?
• Do we need to improve the collection of other environmental or socio-economic
variables in our biodiversity monitoring?
• Can we collect new data?
– What are the priorities for new data and why? Who should collect this data?
Do we have to stop doing something else?
– What new technology can be used? How can we gain a collective
understanding of its potential? What is the role for Citizen Science?
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Feedback
• 1. Who is already doing what to:
– Make more of the data we have?
– Improve our understanding of biodiversity and
ecosystem change, so that we can interpret our existing
data better?
– Collect new data?
• 2. What more could be done and by whom?
• 1-3 suggestions per question.
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