Biodiversity: Targets

The 10-Year Implementation Plan sets out the following two-, six- and ten-year targets for guiding the biodiversity-related work on GEOSS:

2-Year Targets

• Facilitate the interoperability of the multi-institutional biodiversity observation network through GBIF and ensure that it links to data sets of ecological and other related observation systems.
• Develop a biodiversity observation strategy that is spatially and topically prioritized, based on analysis of existing information, identifying unique or highly diverse ecosystems and those supporting migratory, endemic or globally threatened species, those whose biodiversity is of socio-economic importance, and which can support the 2010 CBD target.
• Facilitate the capture of ten million new biodiversity observations per year, the agreement to data collection protocols by networks of permanent sites, and the launch of initiatives on three key issues.
• Advocate additional support to permit data system integration sharing by data providers, particularly the research and collections institutions.
• Produce an analysis of the gaps and needs in capacity building initiatives within the biodiversity observation system, including for microbial biodiversity.
• Produce a strategy for capturing the outputs of citizen-based biodiversity monitoring systems.

6-Year Targets

• Produce timely data and information for local, national, regional and international policy makers, scientists and natural resource managers through the distributed observation network.
• Facilitate the establishment of monitoring systems for policy-interest and endangered species, allowing frequently-repeated globally-coordinated assessment of trends and distributions of species of special conservation merit, including domesticated animals, cultivated plants, and fish species and their wild relatives and species of medicinal or economic value.
• Facilitate the operational deployment of a system to provide near-real-time data on detection, establishment and spread of problematic invasive organisms.
• Facilitate the systematic monitoring of biodiversity in all ecosystems using statistically valid methods.
• Facilitate the full operationality and integration of citizen-based biodiversity observation systems.
• Facilitate the addition of twelve million new spatially and temporally explicit observation records yearly.
• Facilitate the delivery of capacity building programmes on data use and interpretation.

10-Year Targets

• Ensure the integration of the distributed biodiversity observation network with sectoral, crisis, health and policy systems.
• Ensure that it is routinely used to solve problems, guide policy and management and generate opportunities for sustainable development.
• Facilitate the addition of fifteen million new spatially and temporally explicit observation records yearly, and the wide accessibility of systems to analyze and model trends in abundance and distribution.
• Ensure the optimization of the observational network, including where necessary facilitating the development of new sites, facilities, technologies and networks, based on an analysis of the observations collected in the first decade.