Coordinating for Arctic Conservation: Towards Integrated Arctic Biodiversity Monitoring, Data Management, and Reporting

Arctic ecosystems and the biodiversity they support are experiencing growing pressure from climate change and other stressors while established research and monitoring programs remain largely uncoordinated, lacking the ability to effectively monitor, understand and report on biodiversity trends at the circumpolar scale. The maintenance of healthy arctic ecosystems is a global imperative as the Arctic plays a critical role in the Earth's physical, chemical and biological balance. A coordinated and comprehensive effort for monitoring arctic ecosystems is needed to facilitate effective and timely conservation and adaptation actions.

The Arctic's size and complexity represents a significant challenge towards detecting and attributing important biodiversity trends. This demands a scaled, pan-arctic, ecosystem-based approach that not only identifies trends in biodiversity, but also identifies underlying causes. It is critical that this information be made available to generate effective strategies for adapting to changes now taking place in the Arctic—a process that ultimately depends on rigorous, integrated, and efficient monitoring programs that have the power to detect change within a "management" time frame.

To meet these challenges and in response to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment's recommendation to expand and enhance arctic biodiversity monitoring, the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Working Group of the Arctic Council launched the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP). The CBMP is working with over 60 global partners to expand, integrate and enhance existing arctic biodiversity research and monitoring efforts to facilitate more rapid detection, communication and response to significant trends and pressures.

Towards this end, the CBMP is establishing five Expert Monitoring Groups representing major Arctic themes (Marine, Coastal, Freshwater, Terrestrial Flora & Terrestrial Fauna). Each group, representing a diversity of disciplines, is tasked with developing pan-arctic integrated biodiversity monitoring plans for the Arctic's ecosystems.

To facilitate effective reporting and data management, the CBMP is developing a suite of indices and indicators and a web-based data portal that will be used to report on the current state of arctic biodiversity at various scales and levels of detail to suit a wide range of audiences. The current and planned CBMP biodiversity monitoring underpins these indicators and indices.