| Relevance/rationale of the indicator (resp. why the indicator was chosen to measure the target and how it is suitable for these purposes) |
The safeguard of important sites is vital for stemming the decline in biodiversity and ensuring long term and sustainable use of mountain natural resources. In addition to protecting biodiversity, protected areas have high social and economic value: supporting local livelihoods; maintaining fisheries; harbouring an untold wealth of genetic resources; supporting thriving recreation and tourism industries; providing for science, research and education; and forming a basis for cultural and other non-material values. This indicator adds meaningful information to, complements and builds from traditionally reported simple statistics of mountain area covered by protected areas, computed by dividing the total protected area within a country by the total territorial area of the country and multiplying by 100. Such percentage area coverage statistics do not recognise the extreme variation of biodiversity importance over space, and so risk generating perverse outcomes through the protection of areas which are large at the expense of those which require protection. The indicator was used to track progress towards the 2011–2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, and was used as an indicator towards the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2010 Target. It has been proposed as an indicator for monitoring progress towards the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. |
| Target value of the indicator and its evaluation |
|
| Definition |
The indicator shows temporal trend in the ratio of important sites for mountain biodiversity (i.e., those that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity) that is covered by designated protected areas and Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs). |
| Measuring unit |
% |
| Indicator disaggregation |
|
| Reference period (resp. the period to which the indicator relates) |
Year |
| Related geographical area |
CZ (NUTS 0) |
| Comment |
Statement of the custodian agency regarding the CR profile on IBAT: data taken from the web https://ibat-alliance.org/country_profiles/CZE (Key Biodiversity Areas). The KBAs listed for the Czech Republic cover terrestrial, freshwater, and mountain ecosystems (no marine KBAs present). With 40 terrestrial KBAs in total, 13 within freshwater ecosystems and 18 within mountain ecosystems, this leaves nine sites that do not fall into either of these two ecosystem types but are still categorised as terrestrial. For example, a lowland grassland KBA may not meet the criteria needed to be classified under the freshwater or mountain ecosystem types but would still classify as a terrestrial KBA, in turn contributing towards the overall terrestrial coverage value. These nine KBAs are included within the mean percent coverage of terrestrial KBA by protected areas calculation as displayed on the IBAT country profile page (94.71%), but not when only freshwater/mountain ecosystems are accounted for. Furthermore, there are incidents where KBAs within the Czech Republic are not entirely covered by a protected area (IBAT’s Data Map can be used to identify these areas), and this too will influence the percent coverage values. |
