The Federal-Provincial-Territorial Biodiversity
Working Group and Environment Canada's National Indicators and Assessment
Office have embarked on a three-year program to develop a Canadian
Biodiversity Index (CBI). The objectives of developing the CBI are
to:
 |
report on biodiversity in a meaningful, concise,
and easy-to-understand way; |
|
assess the success of biodiversity management
in Canada; and |
|
meet some of the reporting requirements of the
Canadian Biodiversity Strategy. |
ESSA was contracted to create the first draft
Framework for the CBI, with the intent that this would guide further
CBI development. This was accomplished through building on the input
of a range of experts from across Canada, and on some of the early
results of proof of concept testing. Once the draft framework was
distributed for review, we then planned and facilitated a national
workshop to discuss outstanding issues and areas of remaining divergence
of opinion regarding the framework, and prepared a report summarizing
the key discussions and decisions emerging from the workshop. We
then used this information as well as other input from regional
workshops and meetings, and review comments from the first draft,
to prepare a revised "working draft" of the CBI framework
for the next stage of CBI development: proof of concept testing.
