Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard

Data visualization increases access to the most-up-to-date and relevant data for measuring biodiversity status and trends, and shorten the time between detectio of a trend and an effective management and policy response. This real-time communication is needed due to the periodic nature of assessments, the lengthy efforts to produce assessments outputs, and the rapid chagnes in Arctic biodiversity. These challenges to identifying and addressing changes in Arctic biodiversity present CAFF with the need for a more responsive, real-time approach to bring its data holdings to life.

A wide range of stakeholders, including scientists, policymakers and the public would benefit from the integration of existing data housed in the Arctic Biodiversity Data Service (ABDS) with data held by international institutions (e.g., GBIF) to deliver customized and updated biodiversity indicators and reference data layers. This integration would streamline the reporting and assessment of biodiversity status and trends, and inform regional and national biodiversity target tracking and measuring.

In response, CAFF is working with NatureServe to build a data visualization extension to the ABDS, known as the Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard.

The Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard is a user-friendly interactive platform that harnesses and visualizes current Arctic biodiversity datasets to streamline tracking and reporting. It will help visualize how close the Arctic is to achieving progress towards regional and global targets such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard will help:

• Streamline biodiversity assessments and serve as a digital, ongoing companion to the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme (CBMP) and CAFF assessment processes;

• Strengthen pan-Arctic and national target tracking, in part, to better serve multilateral environmental agreements and related global initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD);

• Support the evaluation and performance of how Arctic conservation investments;

• Support impact, vulnerability, and threat assessment;

• Strengthen public understanding and support for Arctic biodiversity conservation; and,

• Identify emerging trends in Arctic biodiversity status and pressures.

The Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard development is based on previous work involving the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP) Dashboard (a global platform used for streamlining National Reporting to the CBD) and current work to develop regional (e.g. Association of Southeast Asian Nations Biodiversity Dashboard) and global visualization platforms (e.g. post-2020 Global Target Tracker). Aligning the development of the Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard with these efforts will achieve efficiencies and help ensure interoperable alignment to global data and indicator libraries and reporting approaches being used in other regions of the world. This can facilitate more streamlined Arctic State target implementation reporting. This is particularly important given the focus on a more streamlined and scaled reporting system for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Phase I and II of Arctic Biodiversity Dashboard has received financial support from the Nordic Arctic Co-operation Programme hosted by the Nordic Institute of Greenland (NAPA) which has been instrumental in advancing the project