Monitoring assessment
At IPBES 10 in 2023, the IPBES Plenary approved the undertaking of a methodological assessment on monitoring biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people (monitoring assessment).
Scope and rationale
The objective of the methodological assessment on monitoring biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people is to support national and global efforts to
(a) monitor biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people and the direct and underlying causes of the observed changes; and
(b) monitor progress towards the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in support of a balanced and enhanced implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, including its three objectives, and contributing to monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and relevant multilateral environmental agreements, processes and efforts, in particular the biodiversity-related conventions, taking into account the specific circumstances of developing countries.
The assessment will take into account other knowledge systems as included in the conceptual framework of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the different value systems as conceptualized in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
The report will assess what data and systems are currently available and needed to calculate the indicators of the monitoring framework for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework related to biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people and the direct and underlying causes of the observed changes. It will prioritize the headline indicators and assess data availability for other indicators of the monitoring framework.
The report will also assess the current capacity, capability and resources to collect and analyse data at the national and global scales, as will be required to implement the monitoring framework for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The report will assess gaps in data availability and access, and existing biases in taxonomic, geographic and temporal coverage of data for marine, inland water and terrestrial environments. It will assess challenges and barriers related to the capacities and means of implementation to generate, access and share data, employ robust statistical methods for trend detection and attribution, and support systematic biodiversity monitoring. The assessment will take into account the specific circumstances faced by developing countries in this regard.
The assessment will identify opportunities to further develop national and regional biodiversity monitoring capacities (with particular focus on the needs of developing countries, including least developed countries and small island developing States) and community, Indigenous and citizen-science biodiversity monitoring.
The assessment will look at options to enhance cooperation, to promote resource-sharing and reporting, to allow data from many sources to be combined and to improve understanding of biodiversity change, especially in underrepresented regions of the world. These options may include bringing together national and regional monitoring systems, networks and other efforts into global biodiversity monitoring networks and platforms. The assessment will explore the benefits of such an approach and will analyse options and enabling conditions for building global biodiversity monitoring networks and platforms. It will account for existing mechanisms and processes operating at the regional and global level, including the Group on Earth Observations.
Timeline
The assessment is being conducted using a fast track approach, and will be completed in 2026 and considered by the Plenary at its 13th session.
Expert group
See the list of experts here.