Side Event
The cost of knowledge – investments to date in authoritative biodiversity knowledge products
Organizer
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), BirdLife International, United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
Date and Time
13 October 2014 18:15 - 19:45
Meeting
Twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
Both planning and monitoring strategies and actions for biodiversity require authoritative knowledge, but surprisingly little is known about the levels of investment necessary to develop and maintain such knowledge products. This is deeply problematic: without such information, those who need it have no way to budget for it. In this side-event, we present and discuss the results of a study of the costs of four knowledge products. Two of these have been mobilized for many decades: the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (which measures extinction risk) and Protected Planet, maintained through UNEP-WCMC and IUCN-WCPA (which documents protected areas). For a third – Key Biodiversity Areas (sites contributing significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity) – a new standard is being developed, building off the existing network of 12,000 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas identified by BirdLife International over the last 30 years, the 587 sites identified by the Alliance for Zero Extinction, and similar mechanisms, and extending this approach to other taxa and ecosystems. Finally, the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (which measures risk of ecosystem collapse) is currently under development. Between them, these knowledge products provide the basis for 30% of the indicators used in GBO4. We will show how much each has cost to develop, annual maintenance costs, funding sources, and categories of expenses. We will then present projected costs to achieve comprehensive coverage, and open the second half of the side-event for a panel discussion with participants to consider implications of these findings for the maintenance of authoritative biodiversity knowledge.