Side Event
Measuring Progress towards the 2010 Target
Organizer
IUCN
Date and Time
27 March 2006 13:15 - 15:0
At COP7, the Parties adopted a framework for assessing progress towards and communicating the 2010 target at the global level, which lists specific goals and targets to be achieved by 2010. SBSTTA recommended a number of headline indicators and means to measure progress toward achieving them. Such targets and indicators will provide governments with the means to monitor and report progress in achieving the 2010 targets – both within their countries and globally in the context of the CBD. However, as yet, despite extensive discussions, there has been almost no progress with implementing indicators to measure progress towards achieving the 2010 targets for biodiversity conservation. Only four years remain in which to deliver results. At the global level there are very few datasets that have relevant data and the geographic scope and temporal depth to establish trends in the status of components of biological diversity. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, compiled through the continuous collection and periodic reassessment of species data by IUCN’s Species Survival Commission (SSC) specialist network, provides the basis for one of the best-developed indicators for 2010, that of changes in the status of threatened species. Many countries have also prepared national Red Lists and therefore have a baseline of information against which national progress can be measured. Scaling up national data to global level is not however always straightforward. Species data are fundamental to measuring trends in biodiversity. Data on species distribution, density, habitat, ecology, biology and threats give insight into the drivers and impacts of biodiversity loss. Thus species data could and should contribute to a whole suite of biodiversity indicators for 2010 and beyond. This side-event will highlight the need to look to the future post-2010, and to mobilize resources to develop crucial new biodiversity indicators as a matter of priority. Key experts from IUCN SSC will present work to develop technical indicators for the CBD.