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Biodiversity

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Europe has set itself an ambitious target: halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Recent EEA assessments concluded that the 2010 target will not be met. Data and indicators which have been used to measure progress towards this target at the European level are now published in the EEA Biodiversity Data Centre.

2010 is the International Year for Biodiversity, the year of the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the year of new biodiversity targets at European and global level. A new vision and target for the post 2010 period have been adopted by the EU:

The vision

By 2050 European Union biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides – its natural capital – are protected, valued and appropriately restored for biodiversity's intrinsic value and for their essential contribution to human wellbeing and economic prosperity, and so that catastrophic changes caused by the loss of biodiversity are avoided.

The headline target

Halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and restoring them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss.

Two new tools for combating biodiversity loss have been developed by the European Commission and EEA: the BISE and the ‘biodiversity baseline’. BISE, the Biodiversity Information System for Europe, is a new web portal centralising information about European biodiversity in a single location. The ‘biodiversity baseline’ is developed as a snapshot of the current state of biodiversity to establish the evidence base necessary for stepping up the EU action to address the European and global biodiversity crisis now.

Biodiversity embraces the variety of genes, species and ecosystems that constitute life on Earth. We are currently witnessing a steady loss of biodiversity, with profound consequences for the natural world and for human well-being. The main causes are changes in natural habitats. These are due to intensive agricultural production systems, construction, quarrying, overexploitation of forests, oceans, rivers, lakes and soils, alien species invasions, pollution and — increasingly — global climate change.

You can read more about key contributions the European Environment Agency is making this year to support discussions about biodiversity beyond 2010.