Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB

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