Sustainability Indicators in Practice

3 Biodiversity Indicators And Monitoring For Ecological Management

Toby Gardner

3.1 Introduction

The fate of much of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity depends upon our ability to improve the management of ecosystems that have already been, or are currently being, modified by humans (Gardner et al., 2009; Wright, 2010; Pereira et al., 2012; Malhi et al., 2014). Monitoring, as a means of detecting the changing state of an ecosystem, and identifying ways in which existing management approaches can be made more sustainable, is a central part of any strategy to safeguard biodiversity in the long-term.

This chapter presents a broad overview of some of the key features of any process to monitor and evaluate biodiversity. Selection of appropriate ...