Frequently Asked Questions

What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity is the shortened form of two words "biological" and "diversity". It refers to all the variety of life that can be found on Earth (plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms) as well as to the communities that they form and the habitats in which they live. The Convention on Biological Diversity gives a formal definition of biodiversity in its Article 2: "biological diversity means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". Biodiversity is not only the sum of all ecosystems, species and genetic material. Rather, it represents the variability within and among them. Biological diversity is often understood at three levels:

Species diversity refers to the variety of different species (plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms) such as palm trees, elephants or bacteria;
Genetic diversity corresponds to the variety of genes contained in plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms. It occurs within a species as well as between species. For example, poodles, German shepherds and golden retrievers are all dogs, but they all look different;
Ecosystem diversity refers to all the different habitats - or places - that exist, like tropical or temperate forests, hot and cold deserts, wetlands, rivers, mountains, coral reefs, etc. Each ecosystem corresponds to a series of complex relationships between biotic (living) components such as plants and animals and abiotic (non-living) components which include sunlight, air, water, minerals and nutrients.

What is biodiversity loss?

Initially the loss of biodiversity could be defined as the extinction of species. Curiously the species richness of a particular ecosystem may hardly change or may even increase because new -often wide spread- species replace the original ones. It is therefore important not only to look at species, but also at the abundance (the number of individuals) of species. Species extinction is just a last step in a long degradation process. In essence, biodiversity loss is characterized by the decrease in abundance and distribution of many original species and the increase in a few other –human favored- species as a result of human interventions. As a result ecosystems are becoming more and more alike. This process is called the homogenization process.

Much research focused on the reasons of the increased loss of biodiversity in the 20th century. Identified anthropogenic drivers influencing the loss of biodiversity are land conversion, exploitation, fragmentation, water extraction, pollution, eutrophication and climate change. Although climate is a slow changing factor, studies on the impacts of climate change concluded that climate change is already affecting species distributions all over the world and will impact nature to a considerable amount in the 21st century.

Why is biodiversity important?

The natural environment provides the basic conditions without which humans could not survive. Ecosystem services are the benefits provided by ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food, water, timber, fiber, and genetic resources; regulating services such as the regulation of climate, floods, disease, and water quality as well as waste treatment; cultural services such as recreation, aesthetic enjoyment, and spiritual fulfillment; and supporting services such as soil formation, pollination, and nutrient cycling.

The degradation of ecosystem services is already a significant barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by the international community in September 2000 and the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years. The consumption of ecosystem services, which is unsustainable in many cases, will continue to grow as a consequence of a likely three- to sixfold increase in global GDP by 2050 even while global population growth is expected to slow and level off in mid-century. Most of the important direct drivers of ecosystem change are unlikely to diminish in the first half of the century. Actually most drivers—such as climate change, excessive nutrient loading, fragmentation, habitat loss and exploitation —will probably become more severe.

What is the state of biodiversity in the world?

A recent overview of the state of biodiversity in the world can be found in The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). The MA was called for by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000 in a report to the General Assembly entitled “We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century”. Initiated in 2001, the objective of the MA was to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of those systems and their contribution to human well-being. The MA has involved the work of more than 1,360 experts worldwide, including experts from MNP. Their findings on the condition and trends of ecosystems, scenarios for the future, possible responses, and assessments at a sub-global level are set out in technical chapters grouped around these four main themes.

The MA concluded humans have made unprecedented changes to ecosystems in recent decades to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, fiber and energy. Among the outstanding problems identified by the MA are: the dire state of many of the world’s fish stocks; the intense vulnerability of the 2 billion people living in dry regions to the loss of ecosystem services, including water supply; and the growing threat to ecosystems from climate change and nutrient pollution. The loss of services derived from ecosystems is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease.

What is the state of biodiversity in Europe?

The ongoing and intensive exploitation of land and water is reducing biodiversity in the EU. According to preliminary calculations Europe’s Mean Species Abundance (MSA) is about 45%. This means that the abundance of characteristic species has been reduced –on average- to about 45% of its level some 150 years ago. It seems unlikely that the target to halt further loss of biodiversity by 2010 will be met, as pressures such as the growth of infrastructure, intensive agriculture and serious overexploitation of fish stocks remain. The recent reform of the Common Agriculture Policies (CAP) has slightly improved conditions for agricultural production within ecological constraints. Now Member States have to make a priority of seizing the opportunities created by CAP reform. This can speed up the fairly slow progress towards the targets for a number of EU directives such as the nitrates and water framework directives. The CAP reforms do not guarantee that large areas of agricultural land with a high nature value, which are currently being farmed extensively, will be preserved. Higher levels of funding and better targeting of financial resources for these areas can make an important contribution to slowing down agri-biodiversity loss.

Reversing biodiversity loss requires land that would otherwise be used for productive purposes. Alongside this claim, we expect to see increases in food consumption, energy-crop production, infrastructure and built-up areas, and also in the need to adapt to climate change. An assessment of the long-term sustainability of future claims on land use is needed to clarify whether the various policies that lay a claim on land use are in balance. This might constitute a first step towards the better integration of land-use policy into EU sector policies.

What is the state of biodiversity in the Netherlands?

The Natural Capital Index (NCI) for the Dutch natural ecosystems has declined rapidly in the last hundred years from 55% in 1900 to 30% in 1950 and to 18% in 2000. This means that the abundance of the original species is -on average- 18% of the abundance in the natural state. Much nature area was lost in the first half of the century, while ecosystem quality decreased in especially the second half.
The NCI for agricultural ecosystems has been decreased from about 51% in 1950 to 17% in 2000. The relative species-rich extensive agricultural ecosystems around the fifties are used as a baseline.
Major changes in the rural landscape were due mainly to the modernization of agricultural techniques and practices. Nowadays this role has been largely taken over by the construction of new housing areas, infrastructure and business parks. This new development has led to a further deterioration of landscape quality, an example being the loss of historic patterns and cultural features in the landscape. Pollution, eutrophication, acidification, fragmentation, exploitation, land conversion, lowering ground water tables, all had a significant contribution to the loss of biodiversity of the Dutch landscapes.
The area of forest in the Netherlands has expanded, while most other ecosystem types continue to decline until recently. The quality of most ecosystem types is moderate to low. By improved water quality and habitat restoration projects some signals of improvement are visible in e.g. streams and rivers.
The impacts of acidification and nitrogen deposition on heaths and dunes can still be seen in the dominance of grasses and the growth of shrubs. Some species that cannot survive in habitats subject to eutrophication, such as the Tawny Pipit, are on the verge of disappearing from the Netherlands. Many farmland species, including various meadow birds, have reproduction problems.

What is the Natural Capital Index (NCI)?

The Natural Capital Index (NCI) is an indicator that approximates terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity of natural ecosystems and agricultural land, respectively. The NCI considers biodiversity as a stock entity containing all original species and their corresponding abundance. The NCI is the average abundance of the original species compared to their abundance in the natural or hardly affected (pre-industrial) state. NCI is calculated by the product of the size of the remaining ecosystem (quantity) and its quality. The quality is calculated by a representative cross section of original species, the so-called shopping bag approach.

What is the Mean Species Abundance (MSA)?

A crucial question is whether the current trends of species biodiversity loss are likely to continue in the future. The lack of a quantitative overview of global species trends makes it difficult to project development trends into the future. To by-pass species biodiversity data problems, a pressure-based version of the Natural Capital Index (NCI) has been developed at the European and global levels, using a number of proximate drivers (or pressures) as a crude measure for ecosystem quality. These relationships between pressures and species abundance are based on extencive literature reviews.

Initially called NCI-pressure based, this indicator has been renamed Mean Species Abundance (MSA). The main difference between NCI and MSA is thus that NCI is mainly based on actual observations in a studied area, while the MSA uses relations between pressures and impacts on species abundance. The MSA can be caluculated with the GLOBIO model.

The NCI-pressure based and MSA have been used in various assessments reports amongst which UNEP's Global Environment Outlooks, CBD’s Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 and the OECD Environmental Outlook. The MSA has been accepted by the CBD as a possible indicator for the 2010 target.

What biodiversity indicators can be used?

One of the most important issues to support policy makers is the development of a small number of simple and feasible biodiversity indicators that adequately express the homogenization process. Such indicators are also needed for the implementation of the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In The Hague 2002, the member states agreed to significantly reduce the rate of loss by 2010 at the global, regional and national level. Shortly afterwards the European Union and pan-Europe agreed upon a halt of the loss of biodiversity by 2010 (“ministerial process Environment for Europe", Kiev, 2003). In 2004 a global agreement was achieved on a small number of indicators for immediate testing in order to review the progress towards the 2010-target and guide policy makers in finding effective measures. Four global indicators have been selected on the state of biodiversity to evaluate the progress towards the 2010-target, for immediate testing:

Trends in extent of selected biomes, ecosystems and habitats;
Trends in abundance and distribution of selected species;
Change in status of threatened species;
Trends in genetic diversity of domesticated animals, cultivated plants, and fish species of major socio-economic importance.

In May 2004 the ‘Message of Malahide’ listed a first set of European Biodiversity Headline indicators to evaluate the progress towards the 2010-target at the European level similar to the above listed CBD indicators. The European Council urged the European Commission to develop, test and finalise this set by 2006. The use of similar indicators at the global, regional and national level is recommended by the CBD for efficiency and consistency reasons. Since 1997 the Dutch government has actively contributed to these consistent global and regional indicator development in the CBD, OECD and Europe.

What are the effects of climate change on biodiversity?

Climate change is already bringing about structural changes in nature: plant and animal habitats are shifting and species are adapting their life cycles. The temperature is rising so fast that not all plant and animal species are expected to be able to keep up. These changes can be eased by policies for creating a coherent network of nature areas so that plants and animals can reach suitable new habitats. This is the aim of the National Ecological Network (NEN), but its assembly is behind schedule and in danger of falling further behind.

Many plant and animal populations in the Netherlands are declining in number. In most of the conservation areas designated under the Birds and Habitats Directives, the environmental quality is not good enough for the long-term protection of species. Outside the protected areas, the rural landscape is becoming an increasingly difficult barrier for plants and animals to cross because of expanding urbanization and intensive agricultural practices.

For more information, see the PBL-report Adaptation strategy for climate-proofing biodiversity

Biodiversity