"Written by Tim Hirsch with Kieran Mooney, Robert H'oft, and David Cooper"--P. 90.

"In 2010, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 in Nagoya, Japan. This Strategic Plan includes a 'shared vision, a mission, strategic goals and 20 ambitious yet achievable targets, collectively known as the Aichi Targets.' The vision is that 'By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.' The Global Biodiversity Outlook 4 is an assessment of progress towards attaining the Strategic Plan roughly halfway between its adoption in 2010 and the deadline for achieving most of the Aichi Targets in 2020. This Global Biodiversity Outlook 4 (GBO-4) Technical Report provides a detailed assessment of the evidence base underlying the conclusions in the main Global Biodiversity Outlook 4 report"--

This synthesis focuses on estimates of biodiversity change as projected for the 21st century by models or extrapolations based on experiments and observed trends. The term "biodiversity" is used in a broad sense as it is defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity to mean the abundance and distributions of and interactions between genotypes, species, communities, ecosystems and biomes. This synthesis pays particular attention to the interactions between biodiversity and ecosystem services and to critical "tipping points" that could lead to large, rapid and potentially irreversible changes. Comparisons between models are used to estimate the range of projections and to identify sources of uncertainty. Experiments and observed trends are used to check the plausibility of these projections.

"In order to assess progress towards the 2010 Biodiversity Target, the Conference of the Parties has established supporting goals and targets and identified indicators for evaluating biodiversity status and trends. The second edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook makes use of these indicators and targets to describe current trends in biodiversity and prospects for achieving the 2010 target. " -- Executive summary, p. 2.

This new four-volume set, Global Biodiversity, provides a wealth of insightful information on the biodiversity of selected nations around the world. The volumes provide informative summaries of the available data on both wild and cultivated plants, wild and domesticated animals, and microbes of the different nations selected.