Related Initiatives
The goal of the Countdown 2010 project is that governments and members of civil society, at every level, have taken the necessary actions to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010.
Countdown 2010 combines efforts to save biodiversity within a powerful network of active partners, including governments, cities and regions, and civil society organisations. National platforms assess performance, create awareness and demand action. To join the alliance, every member commits to take specific steps to save biodiversity in its realm.
The project's objectives are to:
- Encourage and support the full implementation of all the existing binding international commitments and necessary actions to save biodiversity;
- Demonstrate clearly what progress is made in meeting the 2010 Biodiversity Commitment;
- Gain maximum public attention globally for the challenge of saving biodiversity by 2010.
Regional Processes
The SEBI2010 project aims to develop and streamline 2010 biodiversity indicators at the European level, as agreed by the European Union and the Council of the Pan-European Biological Diversity and Landscape Strategy (PEBLDS), to assess and inform about progress towards the European 2010 targets.
This requires effective coordination within Europe to ensure consistency and avoid duplication of effort on achieving the 2010 target to halt biodiversity loss. The project is a collaborative effort, open to all interested governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organizations and experts.
The objectives of the SEBI2010 project with respect to its contribution to achieving the 2010 target, are:
- to consolidate, test, refine, document and help produce streamlined sets of policy-relevant biodiversity indicators meaningful in the context of the 2010 target
- to help ensure adequate funding for the development and production of indicators and assessments, and related monitoring activities, to support implementation and achievement of the policy decisions and targets
- to improve coordination, exchange of information, collaboration and international streamlining on biodiversity-related indicators and monitoring activities building on current activities and good practice
- to consider the wider use of the indicators, and their applicability within other relevant indicator frameworks and assessment processes
Ark 2010
The Ark 2010 programme is aimed at developing a new generation of computational tools for discovering, integrating, analyzing and sharing biodiversity information. Ark 2010 seeks to provide new technologies for developing indicators, building scenarios and, in general, evaluating status and trends of global biodiversity.
Two regional pilots have been selected to guide the Ark 2010 development in its first phase, covering the Artic and Neotropical regions. The first pilot is linked to the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program. One of the main expected results from this initiative is a comprehensive biodiversity report to be delivered in the context of the 2010 Biodiversity Target. This report will be mostly based on the analysis of a set of indicators, including:
- Extent of terrestrial, coastal, freshwater and marine biomes
- Extent and frequency of natural disturbances (i.e. fire, insects)
- Arctic Living Planet Index (trends in vertebrate populations)
- Red List Index (trends in species at risk)
- Extent of human footprint (roads, seismic lines, etc)
- Trends in Arctic phenology (i.e. timing of Arctic green-up)
The second pilot will evaluate status, trends and values of cloud forest biodiversity in Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia. It will also test new technologies to better understand cloud forest services, threats and conservation opportunities.
Results from this pilot will be primarily intended to support the reporting and decision making bodies of the 2010 Biodiversity Target at national level. Main regional partners in this pilot are CONABIO (Mexico), INBio (Costa Rica) and Humboldt Institute (Colombia).
Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program
The CBMP has been developed by the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna Working Group of the Arctic Council (CAFF), in response to directives by the Arctic Council Ministers, and numerous international agreements and conventions. Its aim is to develop effective policies that protect Arctic flora and fauna from extinction, but also allow for the sustainable use of the Arctic’s living resources, socio-cultural stability, and successful regional and economic development.
The CBMP will serve as a coordinating entity for currently existing biodiversity monitoring programmes in the Arctic, and will implement indicators that reflect changes and shifts in the status, trends, abundance, and distribution of Arctic species, habitats, and ecosystems. The CBMP indicators will be consistent with the CBD 2010 global indicators.
Other Initiatives
This project, based at the Australian Museum in Sydney, aims to research a key issue concerning Australia's biodiversity: how to achieve the cross-disciplinary approaches needed for better estimation of overall biodiversity, and for finding the balance with other needs of society, underpinning sustainability. The project will address biodiversity scenarios relating to the 2010 target, plus other land-use and climate change pressures at the scale of continental Australia. It will bring together a network of researchers looking into carbon accounting and the use of a prototype calculus of global and regional biodiversity. This prototype uses surrogate information based on the best available environment and species data, and may enable the establishment of links to climate and land use change scenarios, and phylogenetic patterns. This project also has a DNA barcoding component, which investigates ways to boost species discovery and document species distribution information.