Cherishing the variety of life on our planet

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Published: May 22, 2009 Last modified: Apr 13, 2011

Today, 22 May, is the International Day for Biological Diversity. To help policy-makers, civil society and the public tackle biodiversity loss, the European Environment Agency has placed biodiversity and ecosystems at the heart of its strategy and work programme for 2009–2013.

It is less than two decades since the global community realised the need to use our planet's resources sensibly and committed to do so. Much has changed since the first timid steps in the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. When the world committed in 2002 to reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, Europe went one step further and pledged to halt the loss completely on its territory.

As the magnitude of the task and the challenges become more and more apparent, the EU biodiversity policy develops accordingly. To this end, the European Environment Agency (EEA) along with other institutions will increasingly focus on assisting policy-makers and other actors by delivering relevant and reliable data to address their needs.

Over the next five years, through the Shared Environmental Information System, Inspire and the environmental data centres, the EEA has pledged to provide quality-assured data to support European reporting initiatives, most notably the nature directives. The Agency has also committed itself to produce analyses on the state and trends of species and habitats. Some of these studies will be based on a set of 26 indicators, known as 'Streamlining European 2010 Biodiversity Indicators' (SEBI 2010).

On the occasion of the International Day on Biological Diversity, the European Environment Agency (EEA) releases a first assessment of Europe's biodiversity based on the SEBI 2010 indicators. The next major assessment based on the indicators will be done in 2010.