The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) is a global network of researchers dedicated to improving the acquisition, coordination, and delivery of biodiversity information at the global, regional, and national levels.
Vision:
A globally coordinated biodiversity observation and monitoring network providing data and tools to decision-makers, scientists, and the public in all sectors and supporting conservation, management and sustainable use of the world’s biodiversity and its contributions to people from local to global levels.
Mission:
GEO BON and its partners support the monitoring of biodiversity change through the coordination and collaboration among biodiversity observation networks, the generation of Essential Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Variables, and the development of indicators, forecasts and various information services, making them readily available to all users.
Values:
GEO BON adheres to and promotes a set of guiding principles for its members and maintains a code of conduct for all interactions.
| Excellence | Provide high-level expertise in biodiversity science and monitoring to support research, policy and decision-making. |
| Collaboration and shared purpose | Support and encourage members, governments, companies and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the mission. Ensure each participatory effort can make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential. |
| Transparency and Openness | Be clear and open about the processes used to gather and share biodiversity information. Learn and apply information in ways that generate new options and support open community engagement for effective biodiversity outcomes. When possible, use open software code repositories, e.g. github, and similar collaborative environments. |
| Inclusivity | Equitably incorporate and acknowledge diverse people, voices, ideas, and knowledge to support biodiversity monitoring and data integration and forecasts. Promote a culture of participation across nations, institutions, and people from all sectors that supports the engagement with the global community. |
GEO BON Focus Areas:
- Assembling the network of Biodiversity Observation Networks
- Developing a framework for detection and attribution of biodiversity change
- Linking data to models and indicators with essential variables
- Stakeholder engagement
More details in our Strategic Plan
GEO BON Video Showcase for the GEO-VII Plenary & Beijing Ministerial Exhibition
Why GEO BON is possible:
GEO BON is a part of GEO, The Group on Earth Observations. Within the GEO family, GEO BON represents biodiversity, one of GEO’s nine Societal-Benefit-Areas. GEO BON, the Biodiversity Observation Network of GEO, is building up for the pathway to link biodiversity data and metadata to GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. GEOSS will provide decision-support tools to a wide variety of users. As with the Internet, GEOSS will be a global and flexible network of content providers allowing decision makers to access an extraordinary range of information at their desk.
In a few short years, GEO BON has created a large global network and community of practice involved in biodiversity observations. The GEO BON Secretariat is hosted by the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science and supported by McGill University.
GEO BON’s Clients and Their Needs:
A successful and sustainable global biodiversity observation network must clearly and effectively meet ‘user’ needs. GEO BON’s most important block of users is the national governments who are responsible for reporting on the status and trends in ecosystems and the biodiversity they support to meet their national mandates (e.g. national biodiversity plans, recovering species at risk, sustaining ecosystem services) and international obligations (e.g. Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar Convention, Convention on Migratory Species, etc.), most of which are members of the GEO BON network.
GEO BON is recognized as a partner by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Another key user group of GEO BON and the resulting data is the scientific community that needs sound and reliable data to produce and populate models, study the drivers of biodiversity change and distribution, identify new and emerging threats to biodiversity along with effective responses, and that must create scenarios and assessments of policies to facilitate decision-making (e.g. Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services).
Why GEO BON is necessary:
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 envisages 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”. Although 196 parties have adopted these goals, there is little organised or coherent infrastructure in place to collect the biodiversity information necessary to monitor progress towards the objectives of the CBD Strategic Plan.
Current international conservation policy requires biodiversity data to be up-to-date, reliable, comparable among sites, relevant, and understandable, as is becoming obvious from the work plan adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and from recent assessments of the international biodiversity targets. Coordinated large-scale biodiversity monitoring, linked to environmental data, is needed for a comprehensive Global Observation Network that can meet the five strategic goals of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and its 20 accompanying Aichi Targets for 2020. This is the main motivation for the Group of Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON).
Currently, our collective ability to detect and understand the status and trends of biodiversity, develop sound assessments, and produce scenarios to guide more effective policy is greatly hampered by a lack of access to high quality observations. GEO BON is concerned with the development of more integrated, efficient and interoperable biodiversity observation networks that can produce more reliable, accessible and timely observations to serve these needs. Being part of the GEO network allows GEO BON the opportunity to connect with the observations and data organized in the other Societal-Benefit-Areas of GEO. These cross-linkages provide an opportunity to produce value-added, integrated tools and products that facilitate more informed and effective policy – going beyond reporting on status and trends to also identifying the causal mechanisms driving biodiversity change and producing predictive models for examining future scenarios.
GEO BON is focusing its efforts on the implementation and adoption of the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and related monitoring guidelines and interoperable data management systems and through targeted capacity building efforts at the national and regional level (e.g. development of a “BON in a Box” toolkit focused on improved observations to facilitate improved policy and decision-making. This approach reflects the need to provide a top-down design for a global observation system (e.g. EBV’s, monitoring guidelines, interoperable data systems) with the pragmatism of a bottom-up construction process (e.g. through national and regional capacity building).