Biodiversa+ strategic biodiversity monitoring governance document (Phase 1)

This report compiles a first overview of the European biodiversity monitoring governance landscape including both national and sub-national viewpoints as well as the outcomes of the EuropaBON project and its proposals for a BMCC, plus feedback from JRC (as a member of EuropaBON consortium), EEA and GBIF as bodies that already support the compilation of biodiversity monitoring data. In addition to them there are also other international networks, research infrastructures and initiatives, but they are not covered in this phase I report. Biodiversa+ aims at developing a transnational network of national biodiversity monitoring schemes across Europe. This report is the first phase to describe the state-of-the-art of current national and sub-national biodiversity monitoring schemes, and to synthesise this knowledge to inform the more general development of a European biodiversity monitoring governance and coordination for the future. With this purpose, this report aims to combine both national and EU-level perspectives by presenting views of national experts from the ministries of environment and environmental protection agencies, and European viewpoints based on the biodiversity monitoring experts from academia, international organisations and the European Commission (EC). This work will also build on the findings of and collaboration with the EuropaBON project, as well as consultations and contributions with other relevant organisations and initiatives such as EEA, GBIF and DG ENV, as well as JRC as a member of consortium. The material for this report has been collected via questionnaires and bi-lateral interviews with Biodiversa+ partners by country during April – June 2022. The Biodiversa+ relevant biodiversity monitoring task leaders have contributed to this report based on their themes, i.e., priorities and indicators, data and protocols harmonisation and interoperability, implementation of novel technologies, and use of monitoring data in research and decision-making. In addition, this report builds on the outcomes of a workshop with the Biodiversa+ Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) and Ministries of Environment (MoE), EuropaBON and the several representatives of the European Commission organised on 15 th September 2022 in Madrid, which provided valuable material for sketching of possible governance structures for an European biodiversity monitoring network. Input was also provided during an expert workshop on data analysis for assessing biodiversity status and trends, which was held online on 29th September 2022. Besides of those, further discussions were arranged during other international meetings, such as a joint workshop of GBIF and Biodiversa+ in Brussels in October 2022, followed immediately by the KCBD meeting and the EuropaBON Stakeholder Conference jointly organised with Biodiversa+ in November 2022, and scientific conferences, such as World Biodiversity Forum in Davos in June 2022, and European Conference on Conservation Biology in Prague in August 2022. This report will provide an important building block for joint development of a multi-scale European biodiversity monitoring coordination. Recommendations for the next steps will feed into the Phase II report (deliverable 2.9) by February 2024, and development of the Work Plan of Biodiversa+ for years 3-4 from November 2023 to October 2025, and they will be aligned with the Terms-of-Reference of the European Biodiversity Monitoring Coordination Centre (BMCC) to be proposed by EuropaBON in 2024.