Photo: Sara Elfstrand

Assessments and Indicators

Method development, piloting, dissemination and implementation of social-ecological systems related assessments and indicators have always been important approaches for SwedBio and partners. Examples include the follow up of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the developments under IPBES and adherent assessments, content support to the Sub Global Assessment network, Community- Based Monitoring and Information Systems and the role of Indigenous and local knowledge in assessments, as well as resilience assessments. This also relates to scenario analysis and modelling and tools such as eco-cultural mapping.

IPBES – the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service
Policy and decisionmakers at all levels need to be aware of the importance of biodiversity and nature’s benefits to people for a good quality of life, including the intimate links between human rights and biodiversity. In order to ensure a comprehensive evidence base for this, IPBES was formally established in Panama City in April 2012 as an independent intergovernmental body.

The IPBES Global Assessment (GA) from 2019 provides evidence regarding the alarming rate and speed of biodiversity loss globally, and the detrimental threat it means for the futures of people and nature. IPBES GA and its key messages play a major role in the development of the CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

SwedBio has been actively contributing to the establishment of the IPBES as well as the preceding Millennium Ecosystem Assessment completed in 2005. SwedBio’s role has been focused on: capacity building for actors in developing countries in conducting assessments; interpretation of assessment results and facilitating uptake of these to policy and practice; providing funding; as well as capacity building and networking. Another role for SwedBio has been the development of methods and tools for conducting assessments. Since IPBES was established in Panama 2012, SwedBio has been deeply engaged together with partners from Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), in developing methods to work across knowledge systems based on equity, reciprocity and usefulness for all involved in biodiversity assessments and other related knowledge generating processes. SwedBio has also supported building of structures for IPLCs to engage in the IPBES, through the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, (IIF BES) and the Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) Centres of Distinction. Stockholm Resilience Centre researchers have also been engaged as authors in a number of the IPBES Assessments. IPBES is thus a core process for SwedBio as well as SRC.

Targets and indicators under the CBD

Comprehensive monitoring frameworks, with meaningful targets for all components of biodiversity are important for ensuring strategies and actions agreed on for bending the curve of biodiversity loss are paying off. Under CBD, a monitoring framework are being developed for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Over time, SwedBio has contributed to partners such as UNEP-WCMC, WRI, Tebtebba, and FPP for contributing to meaningful indicators for monitoring of biodiversity. Bottom-up methods for biodiversity monitoring and assessments taking advantage of the diversity of cultures are for example eco-cultural mapping and calendars, and Community Based Monitoring and Information Systems (CBMIS). SwedBio has also contributed to the development of measurements related to collective action of Indigenous peoples and local communities in biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

As a base for the new post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework there is an ongoing analysis on the extent to which the Strategic Plan 2010 – 2020 and its twenty Aichi Biodiversity Targets have been achieved. The “Local Biodiversity Outlooks” is an initiative that builds on Indigenous peoples and local communities’ own way of assessing their achievements through CBMIS. SwedBio has accompanied this process, together with the Forest Peoples Programme and the CBD Secretariat, and also provided financial support to the documentation performed by Indigenous peoples and local communities of their contributions to achieving the Aichi targets.