Effective Biodiversity Monitoring Needs a Culture of Integration

TLDR

Many countries lack large‑scale biodiversity monitoring programs, and existing designs are often top‑down and data‑centric, overlooking the socio‑cultural diversity of independent actors whose complementary efforts span places, times, and taxa. The authors propose a framework that aligns diverse monitoring efforts through a networked design of stakeholders, data, and biodiversity schemes, aiming to overcome stakeholder barriers and incentives. They advocate integrating independent observations with a structured core monitoring backbone to foster broad ownership and resilience through partnerships among science, society, policy, and individuals.

Abstract

Despite conservation commitments, most countries still lack large-scale biodiversity monitoring programs to track progress toward agreed targets. Monitoring program design is frequently approached from a top-down, data-centric perspective that ignores the socio-cultural context of data collection. A rich landscape of people and organizations, with a diversity of motivations and expertise, independently engages in biodiversity monitoring. This diversity often leads to complementarity in activities across places, time periods, and taxa. In this Perspective, we propose a framework for aligning different efforts to realize large-scale biodiversity monitoring through a networked design of stakeholders, data, and biodiversity schemes. We emphasize the value of integrating independent biodiversity observations in conjunction with a backbone of structured core monitoring, thereby fostering broad ownership and resilience due to a strong partnership of science, society, policy, and individuals. Furthermore, we identify stakeholder-specific barriers and incentives to foster joint collaboration toward effective large-scale biodiversity monitoring.