Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB
Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB
Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
STRENGTHENING INDICATORS AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS FOR NATURAL CAPITAL<br />
whilst monitoring responses can help to assess the<br />
effectiveness of conservation measures: these facilitate<br />
the adoption of adaptive management practices<br />
(Salafsky et al. 2001). Creating a framework that<br />
complements state indicators with indicators of related<br />
pressures and drivers would therefore provide a<br />
comprehensive measurement and monitoring system<br />
to enable effective management of biodiversity and<br />
many key ecosystem services at a global level. Specific<br />
ecosystem service indicators would also be required for<br />
certain circumstances and locations (see 3.2.4 below).<br />
We already have sufficient species monitoring data to<br />
provide headline indicators of species population trends<br />
and threat status trends, although representation of some<br />
taxa groups and regions needs to be improved. We can<br />
also assess ecosystem extent through remote sensing<br />
data: existing datasets could be used more effectively by<br />
developing software to create long time series and<br />
near-real-time data on land use, land cover and landscape<br />
fragmentation in collaboration with e.g. GMES and NASA.<br />
The main gap in available data therefore concerns ecosystem<br />
condition. This requires major investment in<br />
monitoring. Some monitoring can be done using existing<br />
and new remote sensing data (e.g. habitat fragmentation,<br />
vegetation cover and landscape diversity) but more<br />
on-the-ground sample surveys of key attributes will be<br />
Copyright: André Künzelmann, UFZ<br />
needed in utilised ecosystems as well as more field data<br />
from countries with the highest levels of biodiversity and<br />
threatened biodiversity (c.f. in richer western countries as<br />
is now the case). With appropriate training and capacity<br />
building, such surveys could be carried out by local<br />
communities and other stakeholders using simple but<br />
robust and consistent participatory methods (Danielsen<br />
et al. 2005; Tucker et al. 2005). This type of monitoring<br />
approach would also engage local people in biodiversity<br />
issues and provide employment benefits. It is essential<br />
to ensure that indicator development supports local and<br />
national needs as much as top-down international<br />
institutional needs.<br />
Biodiversity monitoring is currently inadequate mainly<br />
because funding is insufficient. Although creating a<br />
comprehensive biodiversity monitoring framework<br />
would require significant resources, this would almost<br />
certainly be a small fraction of the value of the<br />
ecosystem services currently lost through ineffective<br />
monitoring and management. Increasing funding for<br />
biodiversity monitoring would be highly cost-effective.<br />
At present, responsibility for and funding of monitoring<br />
and measurement is not fully shared with those<br />
who use and benefit from biodiversity or with those<br />
who damage it. At the moment, a significant proportion<br />
of biodiversity monitoring costs are met by<br />
NGOs and their volunteers or from public sources. A<br />
strong case can be made for more use of approaches<br />
based on the polluter pays principle to contribute to<br />
better monitoring of biodiversity pressures and state.<br />
Shifting more responsibility for monitoring to the<br />
private sector can reduce the cost burden on public<br />
authorities.<br />
More generally, the private sector’s impacts on biodiversity<br />
need to be better monitored and reported on.<br />
Although indicators of such impacts have been developed,<br />
these tend to be too general and inconsistently<br />
applied to be of great value. We need to agree on<br />
approaches and standards that provide more<br />
meaningful and robust indicators of biodiversity impacts<br />
and are linked to SMART business targets<br />
(e.g. no net loss of biodiversity). Top-down generic<br />
indicators need to be completed by bottom-up<br />
approaches where local stakeholders report on impacts<br />
of relevance to them.<br />
<strong>TEEB</strong> FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY MAKERS - CHAPTER 3: PAGE 13