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Forest Biodiversity Indicators

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Forest Biodiversity Indicators FORESTFOREST BIODIVERSITYBIODIVERSITY INDICATORSINDICATORS TOOLS FOR POLICY-MAKING AND MANAGEMENT A WORLD FOR THE WISE Forests are important for Forest policy and Uses of Indicators: The way indicators are developed and presented is critical to their utility and success biodiversity management need to take in supporting decision-making. They must be Forest biodiversity indicators are needed for presented in easily interpretable forms that are account of biodiversity many purposes, including: Globally, forests are vitally important for also appropriate to the data they depend on. biodiversity. Tropical moist forests are the most Ideally, a national forest programme • State of environment reporting diverse ecosystems on earth. Although they incorporates holistic planning for the use of a • National reporting under Multilateral This document presents some examples of only cover around 6% of the land surface, they nation’s entire forest estate. This includes zoning Environmental Agreements such as the CBD approaches that can be used for developing hold well over half, and perhaps as many as existing natural forest into areas for conversion, • Identifying priority areas and components of forest biodiversity indicators and suggestions 90%, of all the world’s species. Other forest for extractive uses and for non-extractive uses, forest biodiversity for future work in this area. types, though less diverse, harbour unique including protection. Biodiversity conservation • Evaluating impacts of particular policies and elements of biodiversity of vital importance and sustainable use are among many conflicting decisions both to people and to the biosphere in general. demands on forests that must be accounted for What are indicators? in national forest policy, planning and These uses imply two distinct types of activities management decisions. Information is needed needed to generate relevant biodiversity Indicators are measurements or expressions that clearly illustrates the impacts of these and information: monitoring and assessment. that convey information about more than just other decisions on forest biodiversity. Indicators Indicators vary in their suitability to respond to themselves. They quantify and simplify can play a very important role in providing this these needs. information on complex issues that is often derived from technical investigations. information. Indicators are purpose-dependent and open to Biodiversity Assessment is the process of interpretation, and rarely, if ever, tell the whole determining the biodiversity complement and story. Indicators should be: value of particular areas or resources. It is generally aimed at comparisons among sites • scientifically valid; and prioritisation of sites for management with • based on easily available data; an emphasis on biodiversity. • responsive to change; • easily understandable; Monitoring explicitly addresses temporal • relevant to focal issues and users’ needs; changes in biodiversity and its status. It • subject to target or threshold setting. therefore depends on measurements that can be repeated and are comparable over time. Users of these indicators include: • National environment ministries • Forest departments • Planning and natural resource authorities • Nongovernmental organisations • Reserve managers • Local communities Biodiversity In developing and using The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) biodiversity indicators it defines biodiversity as the "variability among living organisms from all sources, . ." including is important to: ". diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". The concept can be applied • Identify and address the correct questions; at a single locality or over broad geographic • Identify the data needed to address these areas including, ultimately, the Earth as a whole. questions; Biodiversity is used to refer not only to the • Initiate and sustain measurement programmes numbers of genes, species and ecosystems to obtain those data; existing in the area in question, but also the • Work adaptively and within the constraints of types present. available data. www.unep-wcmc.org A WORLD FOR THE WISE Indicators for forest different groups of species, this relationship may It is important in biodiversity assessment that Results can be presented in the form of maps break down at finer resolution. Therefore using a the data used are at an appropriate scale of highlighting areas of importance under particular biodiversity assessment single indicator group to identify priority areas for resolution. Species distribution data on, for criteria, as rankings or as graphs. based on species forest biodiversity as a whole requires caution. example 50x50 km grids, may provide little Prioritisation based on biodiversity assessment Biodiversity assessment is the process of can also be used in combination with determining the biodiversity complement and assessments of threats or likely impacts to value of a particular area. It plays a vital role in prioritise investment in monitoring and reporting planning for the management of biodiversity, by of other indicators. allowing the identification of both priority areas and important components of biodiversity. Identifying Globally Several different indicators based on species can be used in biodiversity assessment. The most Threatened Species important are: The IUCN Red List categories of threat are designed to provide an impartial assessment of Presence of particular important species: the likelihood of extinction of a taxon under current circumstances. The following categories are the • Globally threatened species most relevant for evaluating biodiversity priorities in • Nationally or locally threatened species natural forests: • Economically or socially important species • Scientifically important species Critically Endangered taxa are facing an • Species listed by agreements such as CITES extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future Overall species richness - the total numbers of low highest Endangered taxa are not Critically Endangered species present Regional Assessment of Bamboo Species Richness - Asia -Pacific but face a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future Species endemism - the numbers of species that are largely or wholly confined to that area Many groups have been proposed as indicators, guidance on the presence or absence of species Vulnerable taxa are not Critically Endangered or including termites, several groups of beetles and in any given square kilometre of forest. However, Endangered but face a high risk of extinction in the non-vascular epiphytes. In general, however, the such data may be useful for estimating patterns wild in the medium-term future most useful groups are those for which most of species richness in particular groups by data are available because they are easier to superimposing distribution data for each The status of a taxon is decided according to observe and identify, namely birds, butterflies, individual species. Such potential richness maps, criteria and associated thresholds based on recent trees and mammals. though coarse, can be combined with data on or projected trends in: forest cover to indicate forest areas that are likely • the degree of population reduction; Data on forest species composition can come to have high species richness and to direct • the extent of population occurrence, from a number of different sources. Tree species further inventory work. including the degree of fragmentation data most frequently come from forest inventory, and fluctuations in occurrence of the total but approaches such as timber cruising and number of mature individuals, reconnaissance survey that focus on timber trees • the probability of extinction, estimated by may ignore many other species. Wildlife and population viability analysis (PVA). parks departments, academic ecological studies Meeting any one of these criteria is sufficient to and amateur surveys provide data on other qualify a taxon for listing in a particular threat groups. These are often checklists that document category. Where estimates vary widely, the the presence and (by inference) absence of precautionary principle is applied and the estimate particular species. Quantification of the area assigning the category of highest risk is used. surveyed and the effort expended increases the usefulness of such data. Particularly for more Forests, especially tropical moist forests, typically cryptic animal species, quantifying survey effort have so many species that exhaustive is fundamental to estimating total richness. inventories are rarely possible. Estimates of species richness and endemism therefore almost always use better-known groups as indicators. While there is often good agreement at coarse resolution between areas of importance for A WORLD FOR THE WISE Indicators of forest Alternatively, information can be combined from Sources of existing data Detecting change in populations of forest as wide a range of species as possible to species is problematic, especially for animals, condition based on produce a multi-species index giving an on species abundance & which are usually difficult to census, and species overall impression of change in biodiversity, as trends include: especially in tropical moist forests where most in the WWF/UNEP-WCMC Living Planet Index species are, statistically speaking, rare. It is • Forestry inventories and monitoring approach. unlikely that significant changes can be Changes in the biodiversity of a forest can
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