Wildlife and Countryside Link (‘Link’) have produced a report entitled ‘Targeting Nature’s Recovery’ outlining the group’s analysis of the UK’s progress against its 2010 targets for the conservation of priority habitats and species.

These targets were agreed in 2006, based on a list of priority species identified under the original UK Biodiversity Action Plan from 1999, and gave desired outcomes for 2010, 2015 and longer timescales. Targets were either maintenance targets aimed at ‘holding the line’ – sustaining the size and distribution of existing populations – or expansion targets for ‘restoring lost nature’ – increasing numbers and/or range, restoring former status or making population more resilient to external threats.

Link states that measuring progress towards the 2010 aim of these targets should have been a key way for UK Government’s to assess its achievements against its international commitment under the Convention in Biological Diversity to halt biodiversity loss by 2010. However, the group has been disappointed with the Government’s lack of action on measuring the conservation progress on these individual species targets.

Consequently, Link members decided to carry out their own assessment of progress on targets for a selection of BAP species; looking at 150 targets covering 69 of the original 303 BAP priority species, the group concludes that progress has been patchy:
• Although populations and range are being maintained for 63% of the species assessed, 30% are still declining
• Expansion targets have been achieved for 21% of species assessed, and at least some progress had been made for a further 46% of species. However, for one quarter of species, there has been no progress against targets.

As Link acknowledges, this assessment is not based on a random sample and may not be fully representative of the overall state of all BAP priority species; the group compares its findings to species trend assessments made during a BAP reporting round in 2008, and suggests that their analysis may actually paint a more positive picture than is the true status of all BAP priority species.

Concluding the report, Link stresses the need for urgent implementation of recommendations it made in its response to the revised England Biodiversity Strategy – Biodiversity 2020 – published in 2011:
1. The Biodiversity 2020 implementation plan should include actions to improve the status of all UK priority species
2. Statutory agencies – including Natural England – must proactively adapt their programmes to integrate the needs of priority species into site and habitat conservation activity
3. Assessments should be undertaken for all landscape-scale conservation initiatives and Local Nature Partnerships to identify which priority species will benefit
4. A clear programme of species-specific action must be outlined for priority species most at risk of extinction and/or unlikely to be adequately conserved through a habitat-focused approach
5. Monitoring programmes should be modified or designed to measure progress on priority species.

Link are currently working on producing a list of actions required to achieve these recommendations. For more information on this and Link’s other work, see the website.

The European commission yesterday proposed a new strategy to achieve the 2020 biodiversity targets by incorporating the valuation of natural capital. The new strategy, which is based on a report by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), states that the economic value of ecosystems in Europe must be factored into decision making at all levels.

This announcement follows the failure of the European Union to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity within Europe. It has become clear that current legislation is ineffective with only 11% of protected ecosystems in a favourable status despite the wide range of efforts deployed to protect nature, and the establishment of an extensive network of protected areas (Natura 2000). The new strategy blames, among other causes, lack of consideration for the economic value of biodiversity for the failure to meet past targets.

TEEB has estimated that the economic cost of loosing biodiversity dwarfs the cost of adequate protection. For example over fishing costs the fisheries industry over $50 billion annually. Janez Potočnik the EU environment commissioner stated that “It is a much smarter economic investment to protect the diversity of life and healthy ecosystems than face tragedy once diversity has been lost,”

The 2020 target to halt the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services has been divided into six main goals covering the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services, improving the contribution of agriculture forestry and fisheries to conservation, and addressing the worldwide biodiversity crisis.

Europe plans to achieve these goals by:
• Building on the biodiversity knowledge base by identifying research gaps, contributing to the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and establishing a monitoring and review procedure for the strategy.
• Setting up market based mechanisms to attract funding for the protection of ecosystem services, and to encourage projects that deliver multiple benefits.
• Establish a coherent message about biodiversity in the common agricultural policy, fisheries policy and water framework directive.
• Interacting with a wide variety of stakeholders through the EU business and biodiversity platform to help share successful initiatives and best practice.
• Engaging civil society in the hope they will become actively involved in achieving the targets.

TEEB estimates that this strategy could create new jobs and business opportunities worth 2 to 6 trillion dollars by 2050.

The full communication can be seen here.

Just in time for Christmas, botanists at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew have identified a new species of tropical mistletoe. This is just one the weird and wonderful plant and fungi species identified or re-discovered over the past few months, as part of the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity.

Helixanthera schizocalyx was originally found in 2008, on a research expedition near the summit of Mount Mabu, in northern Mozambique. Colin Congdon, an East African butterfly specialist recognised the mistletoe as something totally unique from montane flora in Malawi and neighbouring Tanzania. Scientists at Kew later confirmed it as a new plant species. This hairless, parasitic shrub, native to wet montane forest, was prevoiously only known from 5 collections from the same area. Its leaves are thought to be adapted for insect – rather than bird- pollination, making the Helixanthera genus different from other members of the Loranthaceae (tropical mistletoe) family. For more on Kew’s amazing discoveries in 2010, see the Kew Gardens Science & Conservation pages.

The BES would like to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers of the Ecology & Policy Blog! We will return on 4th January 2011.

Plans for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to begin setting up the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) were formally announced at a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York this week.

The idea to establish the IPBES was first discussed following the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reports released in 2005, in which devastating levels of biodiversity loss worldwide were highlighted. It is thought that the panel will be modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will play a major role in shaping global environmental policy. As outlined in previous UN meetings, the IPBES will provide independent advice and scientific evidence on the state and trends of biodiversity for policy makers worldwide. It will also carry out peer-reviews on scientific literature to establish a ‘gold standard’ for reporting of biodiversity to policy makers.

Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Advisor to Defra endorsed this historic agreement, expressing his hopes that: “this new platform will help to mobilise the world’s scientific community, and bring scientists and policy-makers together, to find solutions to these problems.”.

“IPBES has the potential to now raise global understanding of the threats we face… and empower governments to make policies to counter them, based on solid and integral scientific evidence.”, he added.

The UK will provide £2 million towards the development of the scientific body over the next four years. However, Caroline Spelman, the Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, sees this as a welcome step forwards in tackling global biodiversity loss and restoring natural ecosystems. In a statement to Defra she said: “IPBES will give trusted, independent advice to governments and policy makers across the world, helping them take the best action to protect the world’s natural environment. The creation of IPBES is a triumph of many people’s hard work and a great way to bring the International Year of Biodiversity to a close.”.

Plans are due to be finalised by environment ministers at UNEP’s global ministerial meeting in early 2011.

Yesterday evening the British Library hosted a fascinating debate led by Professor Georgina Mace FRS, President-Elect of the British Ecological Society. A large audience assembled to hear Prof. Mace discuss ‘Biodiversity in the 21st Century: are we missing the target’, at the tenth in the British Library’s ‘Talk Science’ series.

Prof. Mace began by providing some background to the development of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD developed, along with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The ‘2010 target’, to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, was set at the CBD ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) meeting in 2002. The COP-10 meeting in Nagoya last month resulted in Parties signing up to a new set of targets, for 2020. Unfortunately the final version of these targets is not yet available, although an advance unedited version has now been released by the CBD (as of 2 November).

Prof. Mace suggested that the process of setting the 2010 target had proceeded somewhat via ‘horse trading’ and that with the formation of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Parties to the CBD would be forced to proceed differently with negotiations, with greater attention to the science than perhaps previously.

There was an interesting discussion about the role of scientists in policy-making. Prof. Mace commented that the role of scientists is to provide advice, being ‘policy relevant, not policy prescriptive’, in the words of Prof. Bob Watson, Defra Chief Scientific Adviser. Prof. Mace recognised that this was not always easy, but cautioned that scientists could lose scientific credibility if their advice was clouded by opinion. Another member of the audience commented that scientists could comment both as scientists, and as citizens with their own opinions, and that the situation would have to be judged for the appropriateness of each.

There was a discussion about the appropriateness of placing economic values on ecosystem services: can we trust markets and the economy to conserve these services? Prof. Mace commented that there were three main arguments for conserving biodiversity: for ethical/ aesthetic reasons, recognising its intrinsic value; for the direct value of nature, for example through ecotourism; the ecosystem services that humans rely on. Prof. Mace said that all three arguments were equally valid and that in fact, argument three conserved different aspects of biodiversity than did argument two: for example, conserving charismatic megafauna for ecotourism purposes, and conserving soil biodiversity for ecosystem service provision.

Other interesting questions from the floor concerned how changes in ecosystem services could actually be measured – for which the answer was inconclusive – and why we couldn’t simply use ‘nature’ as a proxy for biodiversity and ecosystem services, making these concepts easier for people to relate to. Prof. Mace commented that ‘nature’ implied naturalness and pristine environments, which was not a reflection of the true diversity of species and ecosystems, whilst in fact some definitions of biodiversity did pick up on concepts of ‘naturalness’. The implication was that ‘biodiversity’ can be useful terminology, if adequately communicated.

2-4 November 2010
Dublin, Ireland

The conference aims to:

- investigate how biodiversity policies and legislation including the Common Agricultural Policy, Fisheries Policy and the Marine and Coastal Access Bill) are affecting and driving biodiversity conservation;
– showcase biodiversity tools and methods available to ecologists; and
- review case studies of some of the more practical methods used in biodiversity projects.

Keynote speakers include:

Mairead McGuinness, MEP
John Cross, NPWS
Damon Stanwell-Smith, UNEP WCMC
John Finn, TEAGASC
Patricia Almeida-Villella MIEEM, Marine Management Organisation
Neil Wellum, Marine Management Organisation
Liam Lysaght, Director, National Biodiversity Data Centre
Matthew Jebb, Director of Dublin Botanical Gardens
Heather Thompson, Chief Executive, Ulster Wildlife Trust
Paul Wilkinson, Head of ‘A Living Landscape’, Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts

To view the full programme and to book you place, please visit the IEEM conference webpage.

The Guardian last week published an article by George Monbiot and Guillaume Chapron, a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, calling for readers to nominate key actions which can make a significant difference to halting biodiversity loss worldwide. The authors are seeking actions which ‘make a major contribution to protecting a particular species or ecosystem and that are ’strongly and widely supported by scientific evidence published in academic journals; but that are politically costly or opposed by special interest groups.’

Submit ideas to the Biodiversity100 campaign or see what others have suggested at the Guardian website. Readers have been given one month to submit their ideas, before the final list of 100 tasks, for presentation to G20 governments, is decided.

Four years ago the European Commission’s annual ‘Green Week’ conference examined the progress towards the target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010, carrying a positive “Biodiversity is Life!” strapline. Speaking for the UK’s Labour Government, the then Minister in charge of biodiversity, Barry Gardiner MP questioned the general public’s awareness of biodiversity loss, not to mention the apparent lack of understanding of what the term actually meant. Four years on, in the context of the International Year of Biodiversity, this year’s ‘Green Week’ fittingly brings biodiversity back into the spotlight. The conference provides a forum for a week of investigation into how to take the EU’s biodiversity policy forward post-2010.

Three days of discussion will address the pressing issues affecting Europe’s nature – what new policy responses are needed? How can the EU best value the remaining resource and measure the ecosystem services the continent’s nature provides? How can it properly maintain and expand its now long-established Natura 2000 network? 3,800 delegates from the public, charity, scientific, academic and business communities are joining representatives from the EU institutions to answer these questions.

Amongst the opening presentations was a speech by the European Environment Agency’s Executive Director Dr Jacqueline McGlade, who unveiled a new Biodiversity Information System for Europe (BISE), which centralises information about European biodiversity in a new web portal. Combined with the new Biodiversity Baseline, which provides a shapshot of the current state of biodiversity, the EEA and European Commission hope this partnership project will make the monitoring of progress towards renewed efforts to halt biodiversity loss a lot easier.

To catch up on the week’s activities, the Green Week 2010 website has details of the thirty sessions taking place, with video links to many of the proceedings.

Organisations around the UK are preparing to celebrate International Biodiversity Day, taking place tomorrow, 22 May. Celebrations began in Wales yesterday, with the start of a three day festival to highlight biodiversity to the public and to encourage individuals to ‘do one thing’ for nature. The BES and Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (IEEM) joined a range of organisations at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, for the launch of the event, exhibiting materials to museum visitors.

Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing at the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG), delivered a speech to exhibitors and invited guests, in which she highlighted the Government’s track record in conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services in Wales. However, the Minister made it clear that the ecological community couldn’t underestimate the challenge of keeping in place some of the structures set up for species monitoring and conservation, given the difficult economic climate. However, the Minister assured the audience that she would do all she could to ensure that the importance of biodiversity is recognised across the WAG.

Both the Minister, and Rhys Jones, a BBC wildlife television presenter who gave a brief address after Jane Davidson’s speech, emphasised the importance of communicating the importance of biodiversity to the public at large. Rhys Jones said that ‘people look at biodiversity through giant binoculars’, understanding biodiversity as something that is ‘elsewhere’; on African plains or tropical rainforests. People do not appreciate the diversity of life around them; in their own back gardens for example. Jane Davidson emphasised the need to ‘keep the vision positive’, highlighting the challenges faced by biodiversity but in such a way as to engage, not alienate people, with the scale of the problem.

The BES and IEEM took the opportunity to launch a copy of our position statement on ‘halting UK biodiversity loss’, in Welsh. You can download a copy from our website.

International Biodiversity Day

Tomorrow, a range of activities will take place around the UK and around the globe, highlighting and raising awareness of the importance of biodiversity to our lives. The Natural History Museum, London, is organising a full day of events, including theatre and art performances and the production of a biodiversity day themed elephant for the ‘Elephant Parade’. The Guardian has today published its top ten picks of events from around the world. To find out more about events near you in the UK, access the International Year of Biodiversity UK network website.

The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, will next week host a celebration of the diversity of the Welsh natural environment. Beginning on Thursday, 20th May, with an event for policy-makers and invited guests, the event will then continue right through Saturday, the International Day for Biodiversity, with activities and events for the public.

The event will launch a partnership programme between over 20 organisations active in raising awareness about, and conserving, biodiversity in Wales. From charities to museums, wildlife trusts and colleges, partner organisations will be present at the event, aiming to increase awareness of the significance of safeguarding the amazing diversity of life on our planet and encourage others to pledge to ‘Do One Thing’ to help the cause.

Jane Davidson AM, Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing at the Welsh Assembly Government, will deliver a speech at the Museum on Thursday, stressing the importance of biodiversity as an essential element for our health and well-being, our economy and ultimately our lives.

The focus of the public events will be on highlighting what people can do on their own doorstep to prevent biodiversity loss, ultimately contributing to the world-wide target (through the Convention on Biological Diversity) to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss across the globe.

The BES and the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management will together display a stand at the event, highlighting to policy-makers our position statement on halting UK biodiversity loss and supplying material to members of the public interested in pursuing a career in ecology. Both organisations are members of the International Year of Biodiversity UK partnership.

Further information about the events and activities on offer is available from the website of the National Museum of Wales