Bridging the gaps between global commitment and local action – Biodiversity conservation is becoming an increasingly urgent imperative in the face of accelerating degradation of natural ecosystems. Effective conservation depends on our ability to measure and monitor biodiversity change, and on the responses to biodiversity loss of a wide group of stakeholders and actors, including governments, local communities and the international community.

A range of biodiversity indicators are under development to assess progress towards the 2010 targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). However, whilst the 2010 targets provide an important mechanism by which to assess global biodiversity change, ensuring that appropriate monitoring systems are in place and translating monitoring results into effective conservation on the ground remains a major global challenge for a number of reasons, including financial and technical capacity constraints and policy and legal barriers.

Developing a better understanding of the difficulties faced by countries in meeting their obligations under the CBD and helping bridge the gap between international commitments and local action is the major theme of this symposium. Thus, the symposium will first assess the methodologies and techniques currently available to monitor biodiversity, go on to explore those which are likely to be available in the future, and finally examine how best to ensure that biodiversity monitoring and responses to biodiversity change are incorporated effectively into policy and practice at national and local levels.

The symposium will provide a synopsis of the best current thinking on how to monitor biodiversity loss and how to ensure monitoring results have real impacts on conservation.

Organised by Sarah Durant (ZSL and WCS), Nathalie Pettorelli (ZSL), Ben Collen (ZSL), Linda Krueger (WCS), Matthew Hatchwell (WCS) and Jonathan Baillie (ZSL).