Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) serve as standardized indicators to monitor various aspects of biodiversity, including species populations, genetic diversity, and ecosystem health, while Essential Ecosystem Services Variables (ESSVs) focus on the benefits ecosystems provide, such as provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. Patricia Balvanera et al. highlight the interconnectedness of these variables, noting that healthy biodiversity enhances ecosystem functioning, which in turn directly impacts the delivery of essential services to human communities and that monitoring EBVs can provide insights into the sustainability of ecosystem services. The authors discuss values of the Essential Variables in implementing biodiversity conservation and sustainable development goals, optimizing the integrative use of scientific, policy, and data frameworks and scalable and repeatable workflows from primary data to indicators. They define effective implementation conservation and sustainable development strategies including:

• Integrated Frameworks: Combining EBVs and ESSVs for a holistic approach to monitoring and management.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Involving communities and policymakers in identifying relevant indicators.
• Adaptive Management: Using monitoring results to inform flexible strategies that balance conservation and development.
• Policy Alignment: Ensure that biodiversity conservation efforts are integrated into broader sustainable development policies.

The authors outline the mechanisms through which EBvs and ESSVs can be used to inform multiple global policy frameworks concomitantly across regional scales. This becomes critical as nations consider ‘data to decision’ workflows at national scales in regions such as Tropical Andes, Southeast Asia, Europe, and sub – Saharan Africa.

Dr. Balvanera is a part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) Global Research Network of Future Earth. At the local scale, she monitors the dynamics of managed diverse tropical systems, and co-develops more sustainable food systems through transdisciplinary processes. At the global scale, she develops conceptual frameworks and monitoring strategies, performs cross-site syntheses and delivers assessments at the science-policy interface. Dr. Balvanera is a professor at the Institute for Ecosystems and Sustainability Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. 

Kim H, Navarro L, Balvanera P, Campbell J, Chaplin-Kramer R, Child M, Ferrier S, Geller G, Gill M, Krug C, Millette KL, Muller-Karger FE, Pereira H. (2023). Essential Biodiversity Variables and Essential Ecosystem Services Variables for the Implementation of Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development Goals. https://doi.org/10.32942/X2130Z

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