Venue:
Charles University in Prague – Carolinum
Ovocny trh 3/5
116 36 Praha 1
Date: 19th-20th October 2006
The Charles University Environment Center, in cooperation with the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, and with support of the Silva Tarouca Research Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening, are organizing international workshop Measuring the state of nature: concepts and indicators.
The aim of the workshop is to consolidate discussion on indicators of ecosystem integrity, sustainable use and biodiversity. Furthermore, the workshop will try to explore methodological pros and cons of different approaches to the construction of indicators for the assessment of biodiversity and human pressures on ecosystems.
Many international processes strive to find the most effective indicators that could track the sustainability of human actions. The question is whether indicators of ecosystem status can be used universally across different ecosystems like basic economic indicators such as GDP or indicators of emissions targets. The lack of universal indicators of ecosystem condition also hampers the development of long-term monitoring networks. This requires intensive discussion of the ecosystem-level indicators that would be scientifically sound, policy relevant and cost-effective.
The motivation for convening this two-day workshop stems from the needs to find consensus on the further directions of developing indicators and indices of ecosystem status and to consolidate methodologies and research questions. The workshop is presumed to contribute to the discussion, what is the state-of-the-art in the area of quantitative macro-indicators of ecosystem status and which indices have the best potential to become universally accepted indicators for the reporting on the state of nature.
The workshop audience includes invited experts on biodiversity and ecosystem status indicators from universities, research institutes and international organisations. The workshop will create a forum for exchange of ideas with a report as an output. The workshop report will be submitted to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its scientific body, IUCN-The World Conservation Union, European Commission – DG Environment and DG Research and US Environmental Protection Agency, as well as will be made available to all interested and relevant organizations and individuals.
The workshop will consists of keynote presentations, short supplementary contributions and discussion rounds focused on the workshop topics: ecosystem-based aggregate indicators and composite indices; indicators of ecosystem condition, services and sustainable use; ecosystem integrity and health; indicators of sustainable use of biodiversity; concepts for the assessment and monitoring of ecosystem status; baselines and 2010 biodiversity target.
The workshop will be convened in the historical buildings of Charles University (14th century) in the beautiful centre of the Prague city. To get more detailed information about the workshop please contact Mr. David Vackar (e-mail:
