1.3: Biodiversity
To deliver information, data and analyses of biological diversity in water, terrestrial systems and soils and air, via an
integrated analytical framework that will support each priority area and considerations across them, including tracking progress
towards, and providing outlooks for, the achievement of targets inter alia as defined in relevant EU and international legislation
and evaluating the effectiveness of European policies and measures.
Other Information:
Analysis - The next five years will see an expansion of the EU biodiversity policy area, due to an increased awareness of
the significance of biodiversity and ecosystem services for human well being. The focus will be on three policy priorities
for 2009–2013: the protection of key species and habitats under the Birds and the Habitats Directives; the commitment to halt
the loss of biodiversity in the EU by 2010 and report on progress using indicators (SEBI2010); and, a longer-term vision around
maintaining the health and resilience of ecosystem services (see Section 2.3). Bringing these priorities together is of concern
for two reasons: first, because the loss of biodiversity, in particular species and habitats, results in a decline in the
'ecosystem services' which natural systems provide; and second, because these and the many other interconnections between
the three priorities, require a coherent approach to data and analysis to avoid unnecessary parallel data collection streams.
Action - We will achieve our objective by: • providing, via SEIS, Inspire and the EEA Environmental Data Centres on Biodiversity
and Ecosystems and Land Use, quality assured data in support for European reporting initiatives, most notably the Nature Directives;
• producing analysis on the state and trends of individual species and habitats as required under relevant articles in the
existing community legislation; • reporting on progress towards the EU and global targets on halting/reducing the loss of
biodiversity using the Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators 2010; • providing spatial analysis of the conflicts and
potential trade offs that exist between biodiversity, economic development and social objectives with special attention to
climate change and conservation objectives; • using such analytical inputs and results from EU funded research projects on
biodiversity for the EEA's regular state of the environment and outlooks reports and the European Ecosystem Assessment (Eureca
2012); and • improving the EEA's communications on species, habitats and their aggregation into indicators, that can be used
by policy-makers, citizens and the media via multi-media channels, including the EC Biodiversity Clearing House Mechanism.
Indicator(s):
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