Danny ChenTo evaluate biodiversity outcome, extent, condition, and significance are used for measurement.
In today’s post, we will talk about significance. If you have not read about the previous post, the link will be shared in the comment section below.
Biodiversity significance is defined as the importance of biodiversity within the project area that contributes to the global biodiversity framework(GBF). It is independent of the calculation that communicates biodiversity outcomes with stakeholders from different perspectives.
Our natural ecosystem is interconnected, and location is important for solving biodiversity loss in a systemic way. As a stakeholder, significance helps us to prioritize our limited resources when supporting the biodiversity movement.
Here are the 4 basic significance attributes under the GBF goal.
Attribute1: Halt loss of ecosystems of high ecological integrity
Attribute2: Effective restoration of degraded ecosystems
Attribute3: Effective conservation of ecologically representative areas
Attribute4: Halt extinctions and reduce extinction risk
Each attribute will be evaluated with 5 different labels(from A to E) separately based on 20th percentile thresholds of quantitative indicators. For all projects to adopt SD VISta, developers must disclose attributes 3 and 4 information.
For conservation projects, developers must report on attribute 1, whereas restoration projects must report on attribute 2. If a project contains both conservation and restoration, then attribute 1 and attribute 2 must be reported.
Although assigning significance is a value judgement. The attribute with public available global datasets may help validation, and verification bodies(VVBs) to evaluate the label percentile.
These are the 4 basic significance attributes that are commonly used. For projects that have additional needs, developers may add more significance attributes when communicating the biodiversity outcome.
Next time, before making selection across various biodiversity projects, take a look into their significance information. It might help you to maximize the biodiversity outcome with limited resources.
