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Published: 21 Dec 2010
The International Year of Biodiversity 2010
has officially ended with closing ceremonies
held last weekend. The European Environment
Agency (EEA) will continue
supporting European policy makers in their
efforts to implement measures agreed earlier
this year in Nagoya, Japan.
Biodiversity embraces
the variety of genes, species and ecosystems
that constitute life on Earth. Despite a
global pledge to reduce the rate of biodiversity
loss significantly by 2010 and a European
commitment to halt it altogether, the steady
decline continues. The consequences for
the natural world and for human wellbeing
are profound.
The European Environment
Agency produced a series of outputs throughout
the International Year of Biodiversity in
order to raise awareness and to provide
policy makers with appropriate tools needed
for designing and implementing biodiversity
policies after 2010.
The Agency's report
‘Assessing biodiversity in Europe – the
2010 report’ considers the status and trends
of Pan-European biodiversity in a range
of ecosystems, and the implications of these
trends for biodiversity management policy
and practice. It makes use of "Streamlining
European 2010 Biodiversity Indicators"
(SEBI 2010) as well as other relevant national
and regional information sources.
The EEA's '10 messages
for 2010' highlighted one theme per month
until the tenth meeting of the Conference
of the Parties (COP10) to the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
in October, in Nagoya. The first message
on climate change and biodiversity was followed
by others on themes such as protected areas
and the marine environment.
Policy makers need a
'baseline' – a starting point for comparisons
representing the current state of biodiversity
– to measure trends in biodiversity, and
consequently the effectiveness of policies.
Building on its work on biodiversity indicators
SEBI 2010, the European Environment Agency
and the European Commission first presented
an outline of the EU biodiversity baseline
in June, followed by a technical report
in October. The baseline supports the EU
in developing the post-2010 sub-targets
and provides data for measuring and monitoring
progress in the EU from 2011 to 2020.
The year 2011 was declared
by the United Nations to be the International
Year of Forests.
