Table Of ContentFeatures
Convention of Biological Diversity, Biodiversity
Indicators, and SSC
Donat Aaosti
TheoutcomeoftheUnitedNation'sJune 1997 implementation of Article 7, indicators are
Special Session of the General Assembly to demanded that ideally should have a similar
review and appraise the implementation of function and appeal as the Dow Jones Index,
Agenda 21 during the first five years afterthe being attractive and understandable to politi-
Rio Earth Summit was sobering. But has cians and their constituencies. Interestingly
reallysolittlehappenedsinceRio? Duringand enough, SBSTTA recommended to the COP,
after the Rio process, it became very obvious withinacoresetofindicators,onlyoneindica-
that actions have to happen at the local level. tor that covers the species or gene level, in-
From this perspective, some spots ofbrighter volving the changes in numbers ofthreatened
light are detectable, for example the growing and extinct species. As lUCN's Red List is
numberofSSC members, theiractivities, and mentioned for its usefulness for definitions
the implementation ofaction plans. anditsprovisionofanimportantsetofspecies,
Whereas UNGASS dealt with the imple- SSCaskeydelivererofthisinformationmight
mentation ofAgenda21, a non-bindingdocu- beanactiveproviderofthisinformationthein
ment, the Conference ofthe Parties (COP) is future.
dealing with the implementation ofthe Con- Whatwouldthatmean? SBSTTA'srecom-
ventionofBiologicalDiversity(CBD),abind- mendationstothe ConferenceofthePartiesis
ing document for the parties (nations). quite clearon what matters thedesignofindi-
Therefore, there is at least on paper a legally catorsatthenationallevel(wheretheConven-
bindinginstrumentavailabletoconservebiodi- tion operates) have to address:
versity. Decisions of the COP furthermore
refine activities to be taken by the parties; the • the way indicators relate to management
questions
Global EnvironmentFund(GEE)isproviding
afinancial mechanism forits implementation; • the ability to show trends
and the SBSTTA (Subsidiary BodyforScien-
tific, Technical and Technological Advice) is • the ability to distinguish between natural
thescientificandtechnological adviserforthe and human-induced change
COP. SBSTTA has turned intoaforumthatis • the ability to provide reliable results (i.e.,
considerably more focused than at its begin- throughtheestablishmentofstandardmeth-
ning,andNGOsareallowedasobservers. The odologies)
lastmeetingofSBSTTA (itsthird)washeldin
Montreal, in September 1997. • thedegreetowhichindicatorsareamenable
One item on the agenda, and recurring in to straightforward interpretation
various others, was the implementationofAr-
• the question ofbaseline for measurement
ticle 7 ofthe CBD, which requests the parties
todevelopnecessarymechanismstoinventory It seems that individual Specialists Groups
and monitorbiodiversity from gene tospecies couldaddressmostofthosequestionsfortheir
to ecosystem levels, and those that are of animals or plants, and the Biodiversity Con-
relevance for economic, health, or scientific servation Information System (BCIS) might
reasons(i.e.,noteverythingshouldbeinvento-
ried). To summarize and communicate the
^/2CCv"oo 2.T ; Z3- Zv- ( )'^1l) Species 23
be of great help. But there are also some theintervalsatwhichdatashouldbecollected,
caveats. Thebiodiversityindicatorshavetobe andmost importantly, to buildupthecapacity
robustand reliable in orderto be able tocom- to survey periodically.
pete with other national indicators and policy The development ofsuch collecting proto-
plans. Therefore,standardprotocolsareneeded cols will depend, on the one hand, on really
notonly to analyze existing data, butratherto collected(observed)data,buttoalargerextent
include everything from datacollection tothe onpredictivemodelsfordistributionandstrati-
definitionofindicators. Thatthisisnotaneasy fiedsampling. Whereasthecollectingdataare
task is probably best illustrated by the ex- species-specific, the simulation models are
tremelylownumberofexistingsetsofnational generally based on data, such as topography,
biodiversity indicators, ortheexceptionallow- rainfall distribution, or land cover classifica-
number oftaxa for which reliable population tion, whicharethe same forallthegroups. As
counts exist (e.g., the African elephant). The personalcomputersgetmoreandmorepower-
implementationofsuchasystemwilltaketime ful globaldatasetsare longerandmoreacces-
andisquitecostly,butneverthelessnecessary, sible, and some predictive models on the
if figures on endangered species should be distribution ofplants and animals already ex-
taken seriously in the context of the ist, it might be achallenge forSSCtodevelop
undisputedly rapidly developing pressures on those tools fortheirown need(i.e.,forthe use
the global environment. oftheir Specialist Group).
The challenge to the SSC is then todeliver The involvement ofthe SSC has a further
such systems. Besides its ongoing activities, advantage. Though above mentioned indica-
the SSC mightdevelopacomplementary pro- tors are used at the national level, the global
gram that aims at developing standard tech- network of SSC has the unique chance to
niques to produce the necessary data for the provide the globalperspectiveonthestatusof
proposed indicator on the number of threat- the endangered species.
ened species. This would mean thatforsome Finally,suchaninstrumentwouldallowfor
groups, an effort should be made to develop thefirst-timeapplicationoflUCN'scriteriaof
standardized collecting techniques, to define threat to geo-referenced data, collected in a
standardized way. Only such atool, complex
as it is, will have an impact onpoliticians and
theirconstituency inthe longterm. Indicators
as part of the legally binding Convention of
Biological Diversity seem to be an important
tool tomonitorits implementation,andwith it
to conserve the environment.
DonatAgosti, Chair
SocialInsects Specialist Group
24 Species
