Biodiversity Indicators

The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership

What are indicators?

Why are biodiversity Indicators Important?

The 2010 BIP Indicators

The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership

The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (2010 BIP) is a global initiative to track progress towards achieving the “2010 biodiversity target” to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The Partnerships brings together over 40 organizations working internationally at the forefront of biodiversity indicator development and is the leading source of information on biodiversity trends.

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What are indicators?

Indicators can be thought of as measures which convey information about more than themselves and can be used to tell stories. For example a person’s body temperate is often used as an indicator of health, with high temperatures being a sign of illness. Unemployment levels are also used as an indicator of the status of a country’s economy and the well being of its population.

Biodiversity indicators can be simple measures or more complex indices. For example, population estimates of species can be used as simple indicators of the health of ecosystems in which they are found. Information can also be combined from several different measures or datasets to form an Index, such as the Marine Trophic Index .

Since indicators are measures of something they usually can be presented in a numerical or quantitative form. A line graph is perhaps the most common form of presentations but other forms such as pie charts or maps are also used.

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Why are biodiversity Indicators Important?

In 2002, the international community committed itself to the “2010 biodiversity target” to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. An essential part of measuring progress towards this target is the ability to track and communicate biodiversity trends and for this purpose the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a suite of biodiversity indicators. The 27 indicators brought together by the 2010 BIP fall under a framework of seven focal areas.

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The 2010 BIP Indicators

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