Measuring biodiversity next year

Just a reminder to everyone that the CBD is soliciting comments on the proposed Post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Needless to say, Sean Hoban and colleagues have been thinking this through and are proposing genetic diversity targets and indicators, and for all species, not just crops and their wild relatives:

the number of populations with effective population size above versus below 500
the proportion of populations maintained within species,
the number of species and populations in which genetic diversity is monitored using DNA-based methods.

Better than genebank accession numbers, I guess, but are they “simple” enough to measure repeatedly and consistently?

Oh, and by the way, there’s also a proposal around to have a single, headline global extinction target.

A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
There’s diversity in asparagus too.
Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
Even big international genebanks.
Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
But some are in trouble.
Though others are coming back.