→	The EU BDS dashboard is publicly accessible through the website of the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) under “Tools”.
→	The EU BDS dashboard currently contains 10 indicators to monitor progress on 5 out of the 16 targets.
→	The three additional indicators selected following last EUBP meeting are planned to be published by the end of 2023, resulting in a dashboard with 13 indicators to monitor progress on 8 out of the 16 targets.
→	Next steps to fill the gaps are presented in this note, including the proposal of two indicators to be added in 2024, the presentation of another one for initial feedback and an update on placeholders.
→	EUBP is invited to give its feedback on the addition of the two proposed indicators in the EU BDS dashboard and the datasets and disaggregations which should be used for the presented representativeness indicator.
→	This note also includes an update on the indicator to track progress on the EU BDS commitment to unlock at least € 20 billion/year for biodiversity.JRC.D.6 - Nature Conservation and Observation

ADDAMO Anna

BARITZ Rainer Walter

BORG Janica

COSTELLO Mark

D'ANDRIMONT Raphael

DALLA COSTA Silvia

GRAS Michael

GUERRERO Irene

KATHRIN Gebers

LIQUETE GARCIA Maria Del Camino

NEUVILLE Aude

OLSEN Jorgen

OSIPOVA Elena

PARACCHINI Maria-Luisa

ROBUCHON Marine

SCHOEN Irina

VISCONTI P.

English

JRC Publications Repository

    © European Union 2023 – JRC135650  State of play and future steps for the EU Biodiversity Strategy (EU BDS) dashboard November 2023 update    State of play of the EU BDS dashboard  The EU BDS dashboard is the Commission’s official tool to monitor progress towards the EU BDS targets. It currently contains 10 indicators to monitor progress on 5 out of the 16 targets of the EU BDS (Table 1). Following the last EUBP meeting in April 2023, three out of the 4 proposed indicators have been selected to be added to the EU BDS dashboard: (i) “Progress in management of contaminated sites”, (ii) “Nutrients in freshwater in Europe”, and (iii) “Estimated trends in fishing pressure by fishing area”. The fourth proposed indicator, “Consumption of inorganic fertilisers”, is on hold following comments from one Member State (MS) representative arguing that it was not adequate enough → The EU BDS dashboard is publicly accessible through the website of the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) under “Tools”. → The EU BDS dashboard currently contains 10 indicators to monitor progress on 5 out of the 16 targets. → The three additional indicators selected following last meeting of the EU Biodiversity Platform (EUBP) are planned to be published by the end of 2023, resulting in a dashboard with 13 indicators to monitor progress on 8 out of the 16 targets. → Next steps to fill the gaps are presented in this note, including the proposal of two indicators to be added in 2024, the presentation of another one for initial feedback and an update on placeholders. → EUBP is invited to give its feedback on the addition of the two proposed indicators in the EU BDS dashboard and the datasets and disaggregations which should be used for the presented representativeness indicator. → This note also includes an update on the indicator to track progress on the EU BDS commitment to unlock at least € 20 billion/year for biodiversity. HIGHLIGHTS    Table 1. List of the EU BDS targets and the corresponding indicators (identified to be) used in the EU BDS dashboard. Those already used in the EU BDS dashboard are shown in green font, those selected to be added by the end of 2023 are shown in light green font, those proposed to be added from 2024 are in orange font, those presented for initial feedback are in purple font, and the other identified indicators (placeholders or on hold) are in black font. The text into brackets refers to the indicator provider (EEA = European Environment Agency, ESTAT = Eurostat, JRC = Joint Research Centre).. Targets Indicators (provider) Next steps and comments 1 - Legally protect a minimum of 30% of the EU’s land area and a minimum of 30% of the EU’s sea area, and integrate ecological corridors, as part of a true Trans-European Nature Network Terrestrial protected area coverage (EEA) Natura 2000 terrestrial protected area coverage (EEA) Nationally designated terrestrial protected area coverage (EEA) Marine protected area coverage (EEA) Natura 2000 marine protected area coverage (EEA) Nationally designated marine protected area coverage (EEA) Representativeness of the protected areas network expressed as the mean target achievement (based on NaturaConnect and MPA Europe projects) PLACEHOLDER - Indicator on connectivity between protected areas (several options under discussion) Collect the feedback of EUBP on datasets to use for the representativeness indicator and follow up the development of the representativeness and connectivity indicators 2 - Strictly protect at least a third of the EU’s protected areas, including all remaining EU primary and old-growth forests PLACEHOLDER – Indicator on strictly protected areas (several options under exploration by EEA) PLACEHOLDER – Indicator on the percentage of remaining primary and old-growth forests under strict protection regime (under exploration by EEA) Expecting an operational definition of strict protection (EU BDS actions 1 and 9) and whether and how this will be integrated in MS reporting (EU BDS action 4), under discussion in the Nature Directive Expert Group (NADEG) and the Marine Expert Group (MEG). Keep exploring indicators for the other aspects of this target. 3 - Effectively manage all protected areas, defining clear conservation objectives and measures, and monitoring them appropriately  Expecting to see whether and how management effectiveness will be integrated in MS reporting (EU BDS action 4), under discussion in the NADEG and MEG. 4 - Legally binding EU nature restoration targets to be proposed in 2021, subject to an impact assessment. By 2030, significant areas of degraded and carbon-rich ecosystems are restored. Habitats and species show no deterioration in conservation trends and status; and at least 30% reach favourable conservation status or at least show a positive trend. Common bird index by type of species (ESTAT) PLACEHOLDER - Red List Index at EU and/or Pan-European level (Red Pulse project) PLACEHOLDER – Nature Restoration Law (NRL) indicators Follow up the development of the Red List Index, the conclusions of NRL negotiations including NRL indicators 5 - The decline of pollinators is reversed Grassland butterfly index (ESTAT) PLACEHOLDER - General trend of pollinators (EU Pollinators Initiative) Follow up the development of the indicator in the EU Pollinators Initiative 6 - The risk and use of chemical pesticides is reduced by 50%, and the use of more hazardous pesticides is reduced by 50% ON HOLD - Use and risk of chemical pesticides ON HOLD - Use of more hazardous pesticides Expecting clarity on the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR) 7 - At least 10% of agricultural area is under high-diversity landscape features Share of agricultural area covered with landscape features (JRC) Collect EUBP feedback on the indicator  8 - At least 25% of agricultural land is under organic farming management, and the uptake of agro-ecological practices is significantly increased Area under organic farming (ESTAT) Trends in the uptake of agro-ecological practices (JRC) Collect EUBP feedback on the indicator  9 - Three billion additional trees are planted in the EU, in full respect of ecological principles Number of trees planted in the EU as part of the 3 Billion Trees Pledge (EEA) None 10 - Significant progress in the remediation of contaminated soil sites Progress in management of contaminated sites (EEA) Publish the indicator in the EU BDS dashboard 11 - At least 25,000 km of free-flowing rivers are restored PLACEHOLDER - Indicator for river connectivity Follow up the development of the indicator under discussion in the ECOSTAT subgroup 12 - There is a 50% reduction in the number of Red List species threatened by invasive alien species (IAS) PLACEHOLDER - Change in the number of native species assessed as threatened within the Red List and reported as affected by IAS (Red Pulse project) Follow up the development of the indicator by the project 13 - The losses of nutrients from fertilisers are reduced by 50%, resulting in the reduction of the use of fertilisers by at least 20%. Nutrients in freshwater in Europe (EEA) ON HOLD - Consumption of inorganic fertilisers Publish the selected indicator in the EU BDS dashboard and eventually propose other indicators to align with the Zero Pollution monitoring 14 - Cities with at least 20,000 inhabitants have an ambitious Urban Greening Plan  No forecast to get this information at EU level 15 - The negative impacts on sensitive species and habitats, including on the seabed through fishing and extraction activities, are substantially reduced to achieve good environmental status Estimated trends in fishing pressure by fishing area (ESTAT based on JRC) Publish the selected indicator in the EU BDS dashboard and keep exploring indicators for the other aspects of this target 16 - The by-catch of species is eliminated or reduced to a level that allows species recovery and conservation  Expecting the developments under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the Action plan to conserve fisheries resources and protect marine ecosystems  to inform target 14 as it refers exclusively to inorganic fertilisers. EEA, ESTAT and JRC are currently working on choosing the best representation, collecting metadata and updating values for the three selected indicators to be added in the EU BDS dashboard. The EU BDS dashboard is publicly accessible through the KCBD website under “Tools”. Future steps for the EU BDS dashboard  Plan for the end of 2023 The priority until the end of 2023 is to add the three indicators that have been selected following the last EUBP meeting to the EU BDS dashboard (“Progress in management of contaminated sites”, “Nutrients in freshwater in Europe”, and “Estimated trends in fishing pressure by fishing area”). The representation of these indicators is currently being slightly adapted to be as relevant as possible to inform the targets of the EU BDS. As such, it is expected to show the increase in the number of remediated sites to inform target 10, the change in the concentration of nutrients to inform target 13, and the proportion of fish stocks sustainably exploited to inform target 15. After publication of these 3 indicators, the EU BDS dashboard will contain 13 indicators to monitor progress on 8 out of the 16 targets of the EU BDS (Table 1). Another topic that is still being discussed is the improvement of the visualisation for marine protected areas indicators. Three options are currently being discussed: (i) keep the current visualisation (map with land boundaries of Member States), (ii) replace the current visualisation with a map of marine boundaries of Member States (using Exclusive Economic Zones) or (iii) add a second map on top of the existing one showing the values by sea region. In parallel, the JRC team of KCBD is working on revamping the front-end of the EU BDS dashboard to make it more user-friendly and easier to update. Plan for 2024 and beyond  The KCBD has further identified two indicators that are relevant to monitor progress towards the targets of the EU BDS and are mature enough to be added in the EU BDS dashboard from 2024 (Table 1). These are: (i) “Trends in the uptake of agro-ecological practices” (JRC based on the methodology published by Rega et al. (2022)) to inform target 8, (ii) “Share of agricultural area covered by landscape features” (JRC) to inform target 7. Factsheets further describing these indicators are available in the annex to this note. No feedback was received on these proposals following the last EUBP-MA meeting of September 2023. EUBP is invited to give its feedback on the addition of these two proposed indicators in the EU BDS dashboard. The KCBD has further identified one indicator relevant to characterise the representativeness of the protected areas network based to further inform target 1: “Mean target achievement” (based on NaturaConnect and MPA Europe inputs). The factsheet describing this indicator is available in the annex to this note. Although this indicator is mature conceptually, any geographic dataset can be used to measure representativeness (e.g. habitats following agreed classification systems, species distributions). No feedback was received on this issue following the last EUBP-MA meeting of September 2023. EUBP is invited to give its feedback on the most relevant datasets and possible types of disaggregation (e.g. by species functional groups, species threat status, by major ecosystem types) which should be used for this indicator. There are three proposed indicators on hold (Table 1) due to the non-acceptance of some Member States or to ongoing negotiations under other regulations. KCBD cannot estimate the delay it may cause to the identification and publication of indicators in the EU BDS dashboard, and what kind of process should be followed to advance in those situations. In addition, the KCBD is still following the development of relevant indicators that are not ready yet, referred as placeholders in Table 1. These are: (i) an indicator about connectivity between protected areas (several options are under discussion), (ii) an indicator on strictly protected areas (EEA, several options under discussion, see next paragraph), (iii) and indicator on the percentage of remaining primary and old-growth forests under strict protection regime (EEA, see next paragraph), (iv) the Red List Index at EU and/or Pan-European level (Red Pulse project), (v) indicators from the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), (vi) general trend of pollinators (EU Pollinators Initiative), (vii) an indicator about river connectivity (developed by JRC and EEA also to inform the Water Directive), and (viii) change in the number of native species assessed as threatened within the IUCN Red List and reported as affected by IAS (depending on outputs from the Red Pulse project). Specifically, EEA is currently working on developing a possible indicator to track progress towards achieving target 3 “strictly protect at least a third of the EU’s protected areas, including all remaining EU primary and old-growth forests”. The indicator will be based on the information available from the annual dataflow on the nationally designated areas hosted by the EEA, including some future adjustments to the format that will be introduced to enable collection of more specific information on this topic. It should, however, be noted that the nationally designated areas is a dataflow from the European Environment Information and Observation Network   CONTACT  INFORMATI ON  EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity: EC-Biodiversity-KC@ec.europa.eu (Eionet)  and such modifications will need to go through consultation with Eionet before they can be introduced. It will also need to be further discussed how such information can be collected for those Natura 2000 which do not overlap with any nationally designated areas. Additionally, EEA is reviewing the information on strictly protected areas available through the currently ongoing Pledge-and-review process for proposing and discussing contributions towards achieving the protected areas related targets of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. However, given the delay with the submission of the pledges, the information that can be used for development of an indicator on strictly protected areas is currently limited. Many Member States continue their work on the pledges and the topic of strict protection also appears to require some further consideration and consultations. Once more pledges become available, EEA will review how the available information alone or in combination with the information available from nationally designated areas data flow can be used to develop an indicator on the strictly protected areas. Furthermore, EEA is also undertaking a review of existing information on old-growth and primarily forests and how it can be combined with the information on strict protection to develop a possible additional indicator on the percentage of remaining primary and old-growth forests under strict protection regime. Adding all the identified indicators so far (2 proposed + 1 presented + 8 placeholders) in the EU BDS dashboard would result in a total of 24 indicators informing 12 targets, although the timeline to get the placeholders is uncertain. Therefore, only 4 targets would be without clearly identified indicators: targets 3, 6 (for which there are however two on hold indicators), 14, and 16. In order to have an EU BDS dashboard as complete as possible in the next years, future efforts should therefore focus on identifying or developing concrete proposals to inform these 4 targets. The KCBD will continue to coordinate these efforts between EEA, ESTAT and JRC, and may request further support from its Science Service to screen, identify and channel relevant research outputs for this goal.  The alignment between the EU BDS dashboard and the future NRL monitoring tools will need to be further discussed once the conclusions of NRL negotiations become available.  Biodiversity financing indicator The possibility is being considered to include in the EU BDS dashboard a biodiversity financing indicator to monitor progress towards the EU BDS commitment to dedicate € 20 billion/year for spending on biodiversity through “mobilising private and public funding at national and EU level, including through a range of different programmes in the next long-term EU budget”. Work has been carried out by a small KCBD ad hoc group (coordinated by the JRC together with DGs ENV and BUDG). The indicator would focus on financing mobilised through EU funds and financial instruments, in consideration of the enabling role of the EU budget and of the availability of broadly consistent data on biodiversity-related spending. It would include EU financing from the multiannual financial framework augmented by Next Generation EU, Member State co-financing for the relevant EU funds, and private (and other public) financing mobilised through InvestEU, which is the most important EU financial instrument. First calculations have been made although they are not yet complete, as the first reporting data on biodiversity-related operations under InvestEU should be available only at the beginning of 2024. The proposed indicator should be simple and easy to calculate, building on the estimates of EU biodiversity-related spending produced every year for the annual EU budget process, on existing reporting data and using some approximations. Although this financing indicator would not be of the same nature as the other indicators of the EU BDS dashboard (notably, it would be calculated only for the EU as a whole) and it is still to be decided whether to formally include it in the EU BDS dashboard, it would help monitor overall progress on biodiversity financing. Indeed, since adequate financial resources are recognised as a crucial enabling factor for many of the EU BDS objectives and actions, the indicator could complement the current monitoring framework. REFERENCES Rega, C., Thompson, B., Niedermayr, A., Desjeux, Y., Kantelhardt, J., D’Alberto, R., Gouta, P., Konstantidelli, V., Schaller, L., Latruffe, L., Paracchini M.L. ‘Uptake of Ecological Farming Practices by EU Farms: A Pan-European Typology’, EuroChoices, Volume 21, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-692X.12368  DISCLA IMER OR  OT HER FI NAL DET AILS  This note has been prepared by the KCBD Secretariat in JRC (Marine Robuchon, Camino Liquete and Aude Neuville) with inputs from EEA (Janica Borg, Silvia Dalla Costa, Elena Osipova, Jorgen Olsen and Rainer Walter Baritz), Eurostat (Kathrin Gebers and Irina Schoen), JRC (Michaël Gras, Irene Guerrero, Raphaël d’Andrimont, and Maria Luisa Paracchini), IIASA (Piero Visconti) and Nord University (Anna M. Addamo and Mark J. Costello) on specific indicators, in preparation of the 4th meeting of the Monitoring & Assessment subgroup of EUBP, and then updated in preparation of the 4th meeting of EUBP .  COPYRIG HT  European Union, 2023  

State of play and future steps for the EU Biodiversity Strategy (EU BDS) dashboard

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State of play and future steps for the EU Biodiversity Strategy (EU BDS) dashboard

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