Biodiversity Monitoring & Assessment

OSPAR's Intersessional Correspondence Group on Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessment (COBAM) met in London to continue its important work on measuring how different aspects of the marine ecosystem are changing across the North East Atlantic.

It is an exciting time in COBAM – over the past few years there has been significant progress in the development of indicators to help us measure how different aspects of the marine ecosystem are changing across the North East Atlantic. This is even more important with the delivery of the OSPAR Intermediate Assessment in 2017 (IA 2017), supporting the implementation of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. At its recent meeting in London 1-3 December 2015, the ICG-COBAM group reviewed the first set of draft biodiversity assessments on mobile species, habitats, non-indigenous species and food webs all of which will contribute to the IA2017.

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