The second meeting of the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP) was held at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montréal, Canada from the 25-26 June 2008. This meeting was crucial for determining the progress of the Partnership, as well as clarifying the expectations for the Partnership over the next two years in the run up to the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 10).

More than 30 participants from major biodiversity-related conventions, initiatives and networks attended the meeting. A variety of subjects were discussed by the numerous Indicator Partners including progress in developing the suite of 2010 BIP indicators and the linkages of indicators between focal areas. Future opportunities were identified for various Partnership products, including the contribution of the 2010 BIP to the 3rd edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3).

The meeting also focused on the work of the BIP post 2010 and the further development of national and regional linkages. The latter will ensure that biodiversity indicators are widely used in broader policy initiatives and by national governments.

For more information, see the 2010 BIP website: www.twentyten.net.

Silja Halle, communications advisor for the UNEP Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch in Geneva, presented an overview of the Branch's work at UNEP-WCMC on 26 June 2008.

The presentation highlighted the Branch's work in Lebanon and Sudan, and described how the Branch will develop as UNEP's Medium Term Strategies are implemented in the near future.

Presentation Part 1 (2.10MB)
Presentation Part 2 (28.8MB)

RALUCIAPA (RAPID ASSESSMENT OF LAND USE CHANGE IN AND AROUND PROTECTED AREAS ) does as it says on the tin and is a collaboration between KCL and UNEP-WCMC (the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre). It is a tool to assist in conservation monitoring and prioritisation and shows protected areas in green. In red it shows areas deforested between 2000 (when most of the NASA imagery used in Google Earth/Maps was taken) and 2005, based on the MODIS VCF data.

RALUCIAPA works best for large scale forest loss in areas of previously full forest cover (especially tropical forests) - it does not work so well in scrubland or in human dominated landscapes outside the tropics. It shows clearly the value of protected areas in preventing large scale forest loss but also where protected areas may be under threat.

The Earth and Earth-Plugin versions especially also provide a great deal of information on protected areas from the World Database on Protected Areas (2007, web download): particularly outlines, names and characteristics. This is a beta : in the next version, with the launch of the new UNEP-WCMC IUCN WCPA World Database on Protected Areas there will be links to tiled downloadable GIS data but these are inactive at the moment.

http://www.unep-wcmc.org/protected_areas/raluciapa/

Published it in Earth (all layers), Earth Plugin (all layers), Maps (some layers) and also VE (some layers)

http://earth.google.com/outreach/env_science.html