SUBJECT: How will we know when the end is nigh?
AUTHOR: Allan Watt
DATE: 15th April 2003

KEYWORDS: Monitoring, integrated research, human values and attitudes, drivers and pressures of biodiversity.

SUMMARY: The only way that we will achieve the Gotenborg target to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010 is to create a truly integrated research framework for biodiversity in Europe, linked to the core programme of biodiversity monitoring recommended by a previous e-conference.

In this session, Andreas Troumbis asks us to consider the question "How can we integrate our knowledge into new technologies, innovative plans for local development and biodiversity conservation?" Martin Sharman considers that this "may be the vital question for the survival of our civilization to the end of this century" and argues that rates of biodiversity loss are not only important in themselves but as an index of the ability of the human species to survive on this planet.

But where does research - the realm of EPBRS - come into this?

The first thing that I thought of was the first thing that I always think of when the Goteborg target is mentioned - how will we measure progress towards this target (to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010)? There is probably no need to raise this topic in this e-conference; it was discussed at length in the e-conference preceding the EPBRS meeting in Denmark last year. But perhaps it is worth mentioning that that e-conference concluded that there is a need for a core programme of monitoring biodiversity in Europe that should comprise two elements: an extensive network of monitoring sites using simple protocols and a series of intensively monitored sites primarily intended to test the methods being used in the extensive network. The subsequent EPBRS agreement endorsed the need for a core programme of monitoring biodiversity as the first of its priorities.

This e-conference is about more than monitoring. Martin Sharman writes that "...to stop biodiversity loss we must address the root causes of loss; we must change many human values, attitudes and behaviours that tend to reduce biodiversity..." To do this effectively we first need more knowledge, particularly on the root causes of loss (the drivers and pressures that determine biodiversity) and on human values, attitudes and behaviours.

But secondly, we need to acquire this knowledge in such a way as it is most meaningful and most readily applied to address the loss of biodiversity in Europe. This means a shift towards more integrated research. This integration should be done in several dimensions. We need much more collaboration, on the one hand, between researchers working on, for example, the socio-economic drivers that are the root causes of biodiversity loss and, on the other hand, between the researchers that seek to quantify the impact of the various pressures that affect biodiversity, such as climate change, alien invasive species and land use change. Largely as a result of European Union funding these topics are being addressed in a collaborative way. But we need more than collaboration; there needs to be integration between researchers working on different pressures in order to obtain and understanding of their integrated impact. And the work of these scientists needs to be integrated with that of researchers working on socio-economic drivers.

I could go on but I will mention only one more area. The reason I referred to a previous e-conference in such detail above is that I believe that research on the drivers and pressures of biodiversity should be integrated with the core monitoring programme to create much more than a network - a biodiversity monitoring and research observatory system.

A contribution by:

Allan Watt
CEH Banchory
Hill of Brathens, Banchory AB31 4BW, UK.