At the next of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (COP15), countries will adopt the “post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework”: a set of goals and targets to drive conservation forward. The Framework will replace the CBD 2011-2020 Strategy and associated Aichi Targets, which expired at the end of 2020. This is a key moment for coral reefs, as it is vital that the framework has suitable indicators for promoting and measuring progress in reef conservation.
To this end, over the last two years, the ICRS has been part of an International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) Ad-Hoc Committee to develop a recommendation for the inclusion of indicators that will be used to monitor the integrity, quality and function of coral reefs. Six primary ones have been proposed as shown in the infographic below.
The next step is for countries that are party to the CBD to make sure that these indicators are adopted as part of the Framework. ICRI is asking everyone to help explain and promote the importance of the indicator recommendation.
ICRS members can help with this. Please draw the attention of relevant institutions and government agencies to the recommendation, by:
- Social media – share the infographic (https://www.icriforum.org/supporting-materials/), or a short video https://youtu.be/wxVRTWXIDig that ICRI have prepared, with #ForCoral and tag @ICRI_Coral_Reef
- Talking to relevant individuals in the biodiversity/conservation/marine agencies in your country
- In written communications – further information is available in this Reef Encounter article (Corcoran et al., 2020) and on the ICRI website (https://www.icriforum.org/post2020/); or contact Simon Harding (simon.harding@yahoo.com) or Sue Wells (suewells1212@gmail.com)
