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A biodiversity-crisis hierarchy to evaluate and refine conservation indicators

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 775–781 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Convention on Biological Diversity and its Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 form the central pillar of the world’s conservation commitment, with 196 signatory nations; yet its capacity to reign in catastrophic biodiversity loss has proved inadequate. Indicators suggest that few of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi targets that aim to reduce biodiversity loss will be met by 2020. While the indicators have been criticized for only partially representing the targets, a bigger problem is that the indicators do not adequately draw attention to and measure all of the drivers of the biodiversity crisis. Here, we show that many key drivers of biodiversity loss are either poorly evaluated or entirely lacking indicators. We use a biodiversity-crisis hierarchy as a conceptual model linking drivers of change to biodiversity loss to evaluate the scope of current indicators. We find major gaps related to monitoring governments, human population size, corruption and threat-industries. We recommend the hierarchy is used to develop an expanded set of indicators that comprehensively monitor the human behaviour and institutions that drive biodiversity loss and that, so far, have impeded progress towards achieving global biodiversity targets.

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Fig. 1: The Biodiversity-crisis hierarchy is used to evaluate the coverage and adequacy of indicators for the Aichi biodiversity targets.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Tittensor, S. Butchart, G. Mace, M. McGeoch, B. Brook and G. Hays for helpful suggestions on earlier drafts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University Geelong, Burwood, Victoria, Australia

    Don A. Driscoll, Lucie M. Bland, Brett A. Bryan, Thomas M. Newsome, Emily Nicholson, Euan G. Ritchie & Tim S. Doherty

  2. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Thomas M. Newsome

  3. Global Trophic Cascades Program, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Thomas M. Newsome

  4. School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Thomas M. Newsome

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  1. Don A. Driscoll
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Contributions

D.A.D., T.M.N., E.G.R. and T.S.D. conceived the ideas, with L.M.B., E.N. and B.A.B. contributing further ideas throughout writing. L.M.B. and E.N. provided expert guidance on indicator concepts. D.A.D. lead writing, analysis and synthesis, with contributions from B.A.B., T.M.N., E.G.R. and T.S.D. T.S.D. helped with Fig. 1 and provided additional feedback, writing and proofing.

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Correspondence to Don A. Driscoll.

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Supplementary methods, Supplementary Tables 1–4, Supplementary references.

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Driscoll, D.A., Bland, L.M., Bryan, B.A. et al. A biodiversity-crisis hierarchy to evaluate and refine conservation indicators. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 775–781 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0504-8

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