The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List of Ecosystems can play a critical role in monitoring the progress of biodiversity conservation and restoration as it addresses 16 of the 23 GBF targets, a new study has shown.
The RED List’s standard for ecosystem risk assessment is a “practical” tool in halting biodiversity loss and assessing the risk of species extinction under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), said the research, published in Nature journal.
“The Red List of Ecosystems provides a systematic framework for collating, analysing and synthesising data on ecosystems, including their distribution, integrity and risk of collapse,” said the report, co-authored by 21 experts, eight of them from the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management.
The global standard could be critical to assess risk levels for each ecosystem as it has the potential to underpin indicators for national and global reporting, the study said.
“As an international standard, the Red List of Ecosystems provides globally accepted terminology, definitions and concepts, within a unifying conceptual and quantitative approach to assessing ecosystem change, as well as a set of criteria for consistent risk assessment.”
The GBF has set four global biodiversity goals for 2050, and 23 targets for 2030. According to the study, the IUCN Red List can enhance the assessment of the integrity of an ecosystem, the focus of goal A and targets 1, 2, and 12 in the GBF.
The list also supports the achievement of 13 other targets, as it can help identify threats to the ecosystem types, and the actions needed to mitigate them, the report said.
“Key threats to ecosystems include invasive species (target 6), pollution (target 7), climate change (target 8) and unsustainable use (targets 5, 9 and 10),” the report said.
“Ecosystem maps and descriptions are foundational to biodiversity inclusive spatial planning (target 1) and urban planning (target 12), restoration planning and action (target 2), protecting 30% of land, sea and inland waters (target 3 or 30 × 30) and designing nature-based solutions (targets 8 and 11).”
However, a data gap must be filled to enable the Red List of Ecosystems to support the implementation of the GBF, which aims to protect at least 30% of the land and sea within six years, the report said.
As the report highlighted, only 55% of the world’s ecosystem types are reliably mapped.
“We need to expand global coverage, especially more national Red List of Ecosystem assessments. This will require investment from countries and the international community, in people, institutions, and data synthesis and development, as well as partnerships between practitioners, policymakers, and scientists,” Emily Nicholson from University of Melbourne, lead author of the paper, said on LinkedIn.
Ecosystems risks are directly comparable to the ones categorised in the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. The latter will inform the first-ever report on the state of the world’s migratory species that will be launched on Monday, at the 14th Conference of Parties to the Convention of the Migratory Species (CMS) in Uzbekistan.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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