Biodiversity monitoring efforts worldwide engage the interest and concern of society segments as diverse as the ecotourism industry, the pharmaceutical industry, environmental organizations, the agricultural sector, and, of course, the scientific community.

The community of networks monitoring various aspects of biodiversity is highly diverse and topically focused. The challenge for building GEOSS in this realm is to assist these monitoring communities to develop comprehensive classification and observing strategies that will allow both observational standards and interoperability to emerge from the current monitoring activities, thus allowing global integration of data generated by these efforts.

The framework for monitoring biodiversity trends recently adopted within the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will form the basis for further developments in this area.

Activities for 2006 will focus on:

• Developing coherent biodiversity observation strategies within the context of an agreed upon ecosystem classification system
• Facilitating the establishment of monitoring systems that enable frequently-repeated, globally-coordinated assessment of trends and distributions of species of special conservation merit
• Facilitating consensus on data collection protocols and the coordination of the development of interoperability among monitoring programs