Addressing disparities in global biodiversity data

Biodiversity data inform policies and decisions that will affect ecosystems and human wellbeing for centuries. To halt and reverse biodiversity loss, hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in conservation and restoration, including biodiversity offset and credit schemes. Biodiversity data are the non-negotiable basis of any such initiatives; however, monitoring efforts to assess biodiversity baselines and change are distributed unequally over space. For example, biodiversity is greatest in the tropics, but biodiversity data richness is greater towards the poles. Yet, solely accounting for latitude will not be a panacea. The systems that underpin patchy biodiversity records are highly complex and driven by various human processes; the social infrastructures that underlie such data disparities and their consequences for data-derived decisions must be considered.

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Nature Reviews Biodiversity

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3005-0677

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