The failure to meet the reduction of biological diversity loss targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity for the year 2010 highlighted a major global policy failure, in addition to the failure of our community to make the case to society of the high risks of ignoring the rapid depletion of natural capital of the Earth. Part of this failure was due to the lack of realistic targets for 2010 as well as a system for gauging progress toward success.
Two new intergovernmental agreements offer a large step forward in establishing baselines and a systematic accounting of rates of change of the components of biological diversity and the ecosystem services that are delivered to society. One of these agreements is the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the second is a Global Environmental Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). IPBES will deliver period assessments of our advances in the science of biological diversity and ecosystem services as well as building capacity to deliver these assessments and to relate these to policy needs. Additionally, a component of GEOSS is devoted to biological diversity and will include quantification of the delivery of ecosystem services through time. Progress toward achieving the goal of delivering spatially explicit ecosystem services at scales from local to global will be discussed in this presentation. Initial results of the ecosystem service accounting at the national level (Global Biodiversity Observation Network, GEO BON) will be shown for a decadal time period based on national statistics and model output).