On April 24th, the CBD Secretariat, in collaboration with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), UNESCO IOC’s Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and GEO BON’s Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), convened a one day workshop in Montréal, Canada to discuss opportunities to enhance global and regional marine biodiversity monitoring initiatives in support of facilitating the implementation and measuring progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
The workshop consisted of a series of presentations outlining current and planned marine and coastal biodiversity efforts operating at a variety of scales and covering different aspects and components of marine and coastal ecosystems. Discussions of how to integrate current efforts and ensure they are meeting national needs led to a series of recommendations and next steps for a more coordinated and integrated approach to marine and coastal biodiversity monitoring. Next steps included outlining a plan for integrating GEO BON’s MBON initiative into the Global Ocean Observing System and developing a marine version of BON in a Box to facilitate the implementation of interoperable marine and coastal biodiversity observation efforts around the globe.