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Review of Biodiversity Data Use in the Country Nature Conservation Bodies 2020

Abstract

The UK possesses a wealth of long-term, taxonomically diverse biological data spanning the entire nation. These data provide an invaluable and powerful tool for nature conservation. Access to biological data enables protection of species and habitats, effective land management and national trend assessments to ensure the sustainability of the UK’s natural resources. Importantly, biological data allow land managers to assess the effectiveness of conservation schemes, promoting efficient use of resources. Applications of biological data have become increasingly important as the world faces the current biodiversity crisis and global climate change. Biological data allows researchers to understand environmental response to pressures, including anthropogenic stressors and underlying climate change, and underpins significant policy decisions to avoid irreversible damage.

The UK country nature conservation bodies (CNCBs) aspire to be “evidence-led” in environmental management, aligning policies and decisions with a strong evidence base. The CNCBs rely heavily on access to high-quality biological data to fulfil their key statutory functions. Recent changes in biodiversity data workflows have created barriers to data access and confusion among the recording community. To alleviate these difficulties and secure the continued application of biological data in the UK, it is crucial to build an understanding of current usage, data requirements and potential future uses.

This report provides a comprehensive understanding of current data use cases across the CNCBs, gathering information from a wide cross-section of data users, from data collectors through to policy advisors.

Resource type Publication

Topic category Environment

Reference date 2020·11·05

Citation
Hassall, I., Cheffings, C., Robinson, A. & Robinson, P. 2020. Review of biodiversity data use in the Country Nature Conservation Bodies. JNCC Report No. 670, JNCC, Peterborough, ISSN 0963-8091.

Lineage
This report provides a review of biodiversity data use across the four UK country nature conservation bodies.

Responsible organisation
Communications, JNCC publisher

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2020·11·05

Metadata point of contact
Communications, JNCC

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