Building a global network for observing biodiversity

There are nine societal benefit areas within GEO – biodiversity, agriculture, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, water and weather. GEO BON was established to address the Biodiversity Societal Benefit Area. Click to enlarge As a member of the International Long Term Ecological Research network (ILTER), SAEON is part of the drive to develop a global biodiversity observation network. Some 100 governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations are collaborating through GEO BON. The collaborations are aimed at organising and improving terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity observations globally and making the biodiversity data, information and forecasts more readily accessible to users.

As a member of the Long Term Ecological Research network (ILTER), SAEON is part of the drive to develop a global biodiversity observation network.

The need for a Global Biodiversity Observation Network

Biodiversity is in decline globally. In 2002, parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) set a goal to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by the year 2010. It has since been acknowledged that this target had not been met.

Furthermore, for most of the indicators used to measure progress towards this target, data were unavailable or insufficient to demonstrate changes in biodiversity over time, at a global scale.

At COP-10 in Nagoya 2010, parties to the CBD agreed to twenty new biodiversity targets, the ‘Aichi targets’, for 2011–2020. On request of the CBD, GEO BON prepared an assessment of the adequacy of observation systems to provide the data needed for these targets. It concluded that for ten out of twenty targets, current systems are wholly insufficient for reporting on biodiversity at a global scale and for a further four they are only partly adequate.

There is a great need to build a comprehensive, integrated observation system for biodiversity across multiple scales, to safeguard biodiversity and protect and improve human well-being.

GEO and GEO BON

The GEO Biodiversity Observation Network, or GEO BON, was established by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to address the Biodiversity Societal Benefit Area (SBA), which is one of nine SBAs within GEO (the others being agriculture, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, water and weather).

GEO is a well-established, high-level international and intergovernmental partnership among 88 national governments and the European Commission, along with 67 participating organisations (including about a dozen UN bodies). These partners collaborate through GEO to coordinate their observation strategies and investments and share their environmental data, information and know-how.

They are developing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) by interlinking their environmental monitoring systems made up of space, aerial, ocean and land-based networks. By generating cross-cutting data, information and analyses, in some cases in near real-time, GEOSS promises to improve prediction and support science-based decision-making on major global challenges.

GEO BON grew out of GEO’s biodiversity community of practice and is a network of networks as well as a task in the GEO work plan. It is a voluntary partnership that is guided by a steering committee comprising the key stakeholders, including DIVERSITAS, GBIF, IUCN, NASA, UNEP-WCMC and others.

Some 100 governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations are collaborating through GEO BON to organise and improve terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity observations globally and make their biodiversity data, information and forecasts more readily accessible to users.

The ideal system

Planning actions to address biodiversity loss at a global scale requires a way of quickly and reliably tracking how biodiversity is changing across the world. Building a system that can fill this need is indeed an ambitious goal. Such a system would need to be based on specific desirable characteristics.

The ideal biodiversity observation system should:

• be relevant to the goal of detecting the status of, and trends in, biodiversity at multiple scales;
• be based on user needs and responsive to emerging societal needs;
• allow full and open exchange of data and products, while recognising the need to protect sensitive data;
• be global in coverage - including biodiversity rich, data poor countries - while being useful to decision makers at multiple scales;
• aim at increased taxonomic coverage;
• be cost efficient and avoid duplication;
• be sustained in terms of data continuity and comparability over time, while remaining responsive to new technologies and emerging needs;
• be quality controlled by associating data with a known degree of accuracy and allowing traceability of observations to the place and time they were made, as well as information on techniques used and any subsequent data modifications; and
• be interoperable, thus allowing data from various parts of the system to be discoverable and allowing them to be analysed together.

An effective global biodiversity observation system would further depend on the integration of different types of data, knowledge and technology across many dimensions including:

• the many taxonomic forms of biodiversity and between the gene, species and ecosystem levels into which it is organised;
• marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms as well as across ecosystems, habitats and species;
• between biodiversity and its abiotic drivers and correlates, such as climate and habitat;
• between the social and natural sciences;
• between collection data, direct (in situ) observations, and remotely sensed observations;
• between national systems, independently developed; and
• seamlessly from providers to users and back.

The key stakeholders in such a system would, among other things, include national biodiversity and natural resource communities; nature conservation and management agencies; national government departments responsible for relevant treaty obligations; the treaty secretariats and United Nations organisations and NGOs involved in the monitoring and conservation of biodiversity.

Objectives

GEO BON is building a truly global biodiversity community of practice by:

• building a network of people and organisations willing to collaborate and share ideas and information;
• identifying providers of observation systems, data and databases, information services and other resources, and inviting them to join the network;
• developing a coordinated strategy for assessing biodiversity at the genetic, species and ecosystems levels;
• facilitating the establishment of monitoring systems that enable frequent, repeated assessments of trends and distributions of species and ecosystems;
• facilitating consensus on data collection protocols and coordinating the development of interoperability among monitoring programmes;
• identifying gaps in data coverage and barriers for data sharing, and developing partnerships to address these gaps and barriers; and
• advocating the strengthening, harmonisation, and sustainability of existing monitoring systems.

Since its launch in 2008, GEO BON started coordinating the gathering of data and the delivery of information. Based on an early concept document, GEO BON released a detailed implementation plan in May 2010. Eight working groups are currently implementing the activities set out in the plan, while a ninth group focusing on biodiversity indicators is currently being created. A number of regional, as well as national Biodiversity Observation Networks are also under development, including in the Asia-Pacific region, the Arctic and Europe.

Activities

GEO BON has been involved in a number of activities over the last two years. It conducted a preliminary analysis of the critical earth observation needs for biodiversity across its terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. On invitation from the CBD, GEO BON assessed the adequacy of observation systems to meet the Aichi Targets. It is also collaborating with the Ramsar Convention to develop a Global Wetlands Observing System.

GEO BON is also developing a methodology handbook for biodiversity observation networks, addressing biodiversity at the levels of genes, species and ecosystems, as well as the notion of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) as published in a recent issue of Science.

The concept of EBVs is based on work of the Global Climate Observing System, which developed a list of Essential Climate Variables, or ECVs, which has become a standard reference in the climate community. ECVs have helped to catalyse new investment in climate observations and there is hope that EBVs will likewise both guide and catalyse greater investment in emerging biodiversity observation systems.

These EBVs will help establish observation priorities and guide the development of biodiversity observation systems worldwide. Through the definition of a minimal set of essential measurements able to detect and gain a sufficient understanding of the major dimensions of global biodiversity change, EBVs will not only support the UN CBD’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets, but also other conventions, future assessment processes such as those of the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the scientific community at large, and a host of other activities, including improved global biodiversity scenario modelling.

References

• Butchart SHM et al. 2010. Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines. Science 328:1164–1168.
• GEO BON 2010. Detailed Implementation Plan. Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network.
• GEO BON 2011. Adequacy of Biodiversity Observation Systems to Support the CBD 2020 Targets. Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network.
  
• GEO 2012. GEO Task US-09-01a: Critical Earth Observations Priorities. Biodiversity Societal Benefit Area.
• Pereira HM et al. 2013. Essential Biodiversity Variables. Science 339: 277-278.
• Scholes RJ et al. 2012. Building a global observing system for biodiversity. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 4:139–146.
• Walpole M et al. 2009. Tracking progress toward the 2010 biodiversity target and beyond. Science 325:1503-1504.

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