This document is one of seven guidelines developed to provide standards and recommendations for management of the country’s natural assets. The Guidelines for Biodiversity Monitoring is intended for conservation scientists, managers and stakeholders involved in the management of ecosystems. It specifically provides support for natural resource managers, protected area planners, decision-makers and managers, staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), NGOs and universities, with a view to elaborating adequate and realistic monitoring plans for individual steppe protected areas, in order to establish a working monitoring system for steppe ecosystems. The Guidelines provide a methodology and structure to set up clear indicators and targets for a comprehensive monitoring system for ecosystems. They offer a working basis for national and local experts and specialists, and support the steps towards a comprehensive monitoring scheme. They constitute the first stage in a longer process of defining clear objectives and indicators for individual pillars of monitoring for the ecosystems and their components.

In December 2022, the resumed fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, including a monitoring framework. The present Guidelines for developing national strategies to use biodiversity monitoring help make biodiversity monitoring a practical tool for environmental policy for countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South-Eastern Europe. The guidelines offer advice on how to: develop plans and strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, mainstream biodiversity conservation objectives across policy sectors, assess progress in achieving policy targets and the effectiveness of conservation measures, minimize health, environmental and socioeconomic risks resulting from biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and maximize benefits from biodiversity and ecosystems. The guidelines are addressed to government officials and experts working for governmental bodies responsible for environmental policy, environmental monitoring, and compliance monitoring.

As the impacts of anthropogenic activities increase in both magnitude and extent, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure. Scientists and policy makers are frequently hampered by a lack of information on biological systems, particularly information relating to long-term trends. Such information is crucial to developing an understanding as to how biodiversity may respond to global environmental change. Knowledge gaps make it very difficult to develop effective policies and legislation to reduce and reverse biodiversity loss. This book explores the gap between global commitments to biodiversity conservation, and local action to track biodiversity change and implement conservation action. High profile international political commitments to improve biodiversity conservation, such as the targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, require innovative and rapid responses from both science and policy. This multi-disciplinary perspective highlights barriers to conservation and offers novel solutions to evaluating trends in biodiversity at multiple scales.

National information needs on forests have grown considerably in recent years, evolving from forest area and growing stock information to key aspects of sustainable forest management, such as the role of forests in the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of other ecosystem services. More recently, information on changes in carbon stocks, socio-economic aspects including the contribution to livelihoods and poverty reduction, governance and broader land use issues has become critical for national planning.

Monitoring is integral to all aspects of policy and management for threatened biodiversity. It is fundamental to assessing the conservation status and trends of listed species and ecological communities. Monitoring data can be used to diagnose the causes of decline, to measure management effectiveness and to report on investment. It is also a valuable public engagement tool. Yet in Australia, monitoring threatened biodiversity is not always optimally managed. Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities aims to improve the standard of monitoring for Australia's threatened biodiversity. It gathers insights from some of the most experienced managers and scientists involved with monitoring programs for threatened species and ecological communities in Australia, and evaluates current monitoring programs, establishing a baseline against which the quality of future monitoring activity can be managed. Case studies provide examples of practical pathways to improve the quality of biodiversity monitoring, and guidelines to improve future programs are proposed. This book will benefit scientists, conservation managers, policy makers and those with an interest in threatened species monitoring and management.

Biodiversity observation systems are almost everywhere inadequate to meet local, national and international (treaty) obligations. As a result of alarmingly rapid declines in biodiversity in the modern era, there is a strong, worldwide desire to upgrade our monitoring systems, but little clarity on what is actually needed and how it can be assembled from the elements which are already present. This book intends to provide practical guidance to broadly-defined biodiversity observation networks at all scales, but predominantly the national scale and higher. This is a practical how-to book with substantial policy relevance. It will mostly be used by technical specialists with a responsibility for biodiversity monitoring to establish and refine their systems. It is written at a technical level, but one that is not discipline-bound: it should be intelligible to anyone in the broad field with a tertiary education.