1. UK Biodiversity Indicators 2014
Christine Holleran, Defra
With thanks to:
James Williams, JNCC

2. UK Biodiversity Indicators
Mandate through senior governance group representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Published annually since 2007
Report on progress with the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and the 20 Aichi Targets within it
Some measures still under development
Compliant with Code of Practice for Official Statistics
The UK biodiversity indicators were originally developed to measure progress towards the 2010 biodiversity target under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Following adoption of the global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity we reviewed the indicators and identified improvements that could be made to some of the existing indicators and gaps that needed to be addressed. For the past couple of years we have been working to implement improvements and fill gaps. We hope to have filled most of the gaps by the time we publish again in October 2014.
The indicators will contribute to the UK’s 5th National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity
The individual indicators are official Government Statistics and are published as a National Statistics compendium – this means production is controlled through a code of conduct on how indicators are prepared and presented.

3. UK Biodiversity Indicators
Latest publication 4 Dec 2014
24 indicators (47 measures)
New measures were published in 2014 for
awareness, understanding and support for conservation;
integration of biodiversity considerations into business activity;
priority species (frequency of occurrence);
ecosystem services (pollinating insects and removal of greenhouse gas by forests); and
NGO expenditure on UK biodiversity.

4. Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020
Framework for all Conventions and stakeholders.
Vision: Living in harmony with nature. By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.”
Mission Take effective and urgent action to halt the loss of biodiversity in order to ensure that by 2020 ecosystems are resilient and continue to provide essential services, thereby securing the planet’s variety of life, and contributing to human well-being, and poverty eradication
20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets under 5 Strategic Goals

5. Strategic Plan Goals & Targets
A mainstreaming
Targets on: awareness, values/accounting, incentives, mainstreaming sustainable use
B pressures
Targets on: habitat loss, fisheries, sustainable land use, pollution, invasive aliens, climate change impacts
C safeguarding
Targets on: protected areas, threatened species, domesticated species and wild relatives
D benefits
Targets on: ecosystem services, restoration, access to genetic resources
E knowledge and capacity
Targets on: NBSAPs, local communities, science base, resources
Strategic Goal A: Address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society Strategic Goal B: Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use Strategic Goal C: To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity Strategic Goal D: Enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services Strategic Goal E: Enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management and capacity building You should I hope have details of the targets in your packs, and I don’t have time to read them all out, but they are listed in some back-up slides at the end of the presentation.

6. Underpinning Framework
C1a/b. Protected Area extent
B5b. Marine pollution
What do we do about biodiversity loss?
What are the implications
of biodiversity loss?
Why are we losing biodiversity?
How is the status of biodiversity changing?
C5d Seabirds
The framework for the UK indicators is a development of the Pressure-State-Response framework. Benefits are the things we get from biodiversity, like food, clean air and water. The framework allows policy makers to ask questions from any starting point.
To develop that, let’s look at example indicators for each of the parts of the framework:
The Pressure from marine pollution is decreasing – this is an index based on 6 substances – 5 heavy metals and an organic compound (lindane).
The State of biodiversity is represented by the wild bird indicator. Picking up on the seabirds, to continue the marine theme, shows an increase in the long term, followed by a decrease in the short term. This may in part be due to changing policy on discards, and also some species dispersing inland.
Benefits is represented by the marine fish size classes indicator – which looks at the proportion of research vessel catches which are over 40cm in length. This has declined in the past, but is now improving. The proportion of large fish is a measure of the functioning of the ecosystem.
Response is represented by expenditure. Over the long term that has increased, but short term has declined – showing more recent resource constraints.
C5d. Seabirds
D1c. Marine fish size classes

7. Indicator Fiches JNCC website http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-4233
Tabbed layout
Summary
Indicator Description
Relevance
Background
Goals and Targets
Web Links
Show All
Includes access to data, technical background papers
Summary section in booklet

8. Indicator Fiches JNCC website http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-4233
Tabbed layout
Summary
Indicator Description
Relevance
Background
Goals and Targets
Web Links
Show All
Includes access to data, technical background papers
Summary section in booklet

9. Example indicator Biodiversity and ecosystem services
Smoothed trend is assessed
Raw data are quite variable
D1a: Marine fish size classes
To bring all that together
We have a headline – biodiversity and ecosystem services (marine)
We have a operational indicator – marine fish size
We have a graph
We have an assessment – over the long term and short term, plus a non-assessed note of change for the latest year of data
Note that the raw data for the graph is quite variable
So we assess using a smoothed trend if that is possible (it isn’t for all the indicators)
Note too that the indicator could be a bar graph, pie charts, map, or other presentation – the key thing is that it helps to communicate the message within the data being portrayed.
We try to provide more information in the Indicator Description and Background sections of the indicator fiche on the JNCC website to facilitate greater understanding of the indicator.

10. Strategic Goal A mainstreaming
Targets on: awareness, values/accounting, incentives, mainstreaming sustainable use
Under development
A3: Value of biodiversity integrated into decision making
A4: Global impact
A2: Conservation volunteering
A5: Integration of biodiversity into decision making
A1: Awareness, understanding & support

11. Strategic Goal B pressures
Targets on: habitat loss, fisheries, sustainable land use, pollution, invasive aliens, climate change
B2 Sustainable fisheries
Under development
B3: Climate change adaptation
B1a:Agri-environment Schemes
B1b: Sustainable forestry

12. Strategic Goal B pressures
Targets on: habitat loss, fisheries, sustainable land use, pollution, invasive aliens, climate change
B5a: Air pollution
B4: Spring Index
B6: Invasive species
B7: Surface water status
B5b: Marine pollution

13. Strategic Goal C safeguarding
Targets on: protected areas, threatened species, domesticated species and wild relatives
Under development
C2: Habitat
connectivity
C1: Protected areas

14. Strategic Goal C safeguarding
Targets on: protected areas, threatened species, domesticated species and wild relatives
C3b: European species
C3a: European habitats
C4a: Priority species - abundance
C4b: Priority species - frequency of occurance

15. Strategic Goal C safeguarding
Targets on: protected areas, threatened species, domesticated species and wild relatives
C5: Birds

16. Strategic Goal C safeguarding
Targets on: protected areas, threatened species, domesticated species and wild relatives
C9b: Plant genetic resources
C9a: Animal genetic resources
C6: Butterflies
Under development
C7: Plants
C8: Bats

17. Strategic Goal D benefits
Targets on: ecosystem services, restoration, access to genetic resources
D1c: Status of pollinators
D1a: Marine fish size classes
D1b: Removals of greenhouse gases

18. Strategic Goal E knowledge and capacity
Targets on: NBSAPs, local communities, science base, resources
E1: Biodiversity data for decision making
E2: Biodiversity Expenditure

19. Mapping the UK biodiversity indicators to the Aichi Targets
Comparison of UK indicators with global-level indicators developed by the CBD demonstrates a fairly good fit.
At present, no indicators have been identified for Targets 16, 17 and 18.
Target 16 is about the Nagoya protocol on access and benefits sharing – it would be premature to develop an indicator until how this is going to work is resolved
Target 17 is about National Biodiversity Strategy and Action P;lan (NBSAP) – effectively this is a yes/no response at a national level, so is suitable for a global indicator, but not a national one
Target 18 is about indigenous communities – less relevant for UK

20. Traffic Light Assessments
Two assessment periods for each indicator
Assessment of trend, not distance to target
Long-term# – assessment of change since the earliest date for which data are available
Short-term* - assessment of change in the last 5 years
# Provided there are at least 10 years of data
* C3a, C3b, C9a have 6 year short term assessments due to the data available
Improving
Little or no overall change
Deteriorating
Insufficient or no comparable data

21. Assessment of change 2014
Long-term – an assessment of change since the earliest date for which data are available, although if the data run is for less than ten years a long-term assessment is not made.
Short-term – an assessment of change over the latest five years. For a very few indicators the short term change is over a longer time period as a result of the frequency of update of the data upon which the indicators are based. Indicators C3a, C3b, and C9a have a six year short-term assessment.

22. Assessment of change 2014 All Measures
Strategic Goal: Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use
Strategic Goal: Improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity

23. Challenges / Next Steps
Filling Gaps
– e.g. A3, A4, B3, C2, C7,
– improve presentation and/or assessment of others – e.g. D1b, D1c
Expressing confidence
– H/M/L depending on indicator characteristics
Evidence Statements
- Defra project let to CEH
Synoptic presentation of evidence
– National Capital Committee request
– but can ‘everything lumped together’ be interpreted
Expanding use of the data
Creative visualisation of big-data

24. Bookmark/share this page:
Combining indicator trends
NB: Dummy data
Combine the assessment of the indicators (e.g. getting better / worse) rather than the actual data
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NB this figure uses DUMMY DATA – to illustrate a conceptual point.
If different countries are implementing a process in slightly different ways, or are using different indicators to measure their progress, we can still combine results without necessarily having to use exactly the same data everywhere.
If results are presented as a increasing / decreasing result then these can be combined as the number that are improving or declining – either year by year, or in the long or short term.
What if differences in implementation in different countries, or different indicators in different countries
Take a hypothetical example
Year x
Year y

25. Thank you, any questions?
Christine Holleran, Defra
With thanks to:
James Williams, JNCC