2nd GEOSS Science and Technology Stakeholder Workshop GEOSS: Supporting Science for the Millennium Development Goals and Beyond Bonn, Germany, August 28—31, 2012

Breakout Session B2: Biodiversity

Conveners: Anne Larigauderie, Rob Jongman, Gary Geller

The first talk will briefly present the overall science-policy context for the Societal Benefit Area on Biodiversity, and for GEO BON, with a focus on the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 of the UN (implemented by the Convention on Biological Diversity) and IPBES, the new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. It will also present the GEO BON initiative.

It will be followed by 2 talks describing key activities of GEO BON: one on the effort to produce a set of EBVs, or Essential Biodiversity Variables (Rob Jongman), and one on building as part of GEO BON, a component on ecosystem services (Wolfgang Cramer).

Each speaker will be asked to identify challenges associated to the implementation of GEO BON. Participants will then be invited to consider these challenges, and to identify any additional challenge they see for the establishment of a science based global observing system for biodiversity and ecosystem services. These challenges will be included in a session summary as a contribution to the final report of the workshop.