PREFACE

Biodiversity forms the foundation of life on Earth, serving as a critical indicator of ecosystem health and resilience. In light of growing environmental challenges and human encroachment on the planet’s wild places that are having a negative effect on biodiversity worldwide, understanding and measuring biodiversity have emerged as essential tools for guiding conservation efforts, shaping policy, and mitigating the global biodiversity crisis. From genetic diversity to ecosystem variety, accurate measurements of biodiversity are fundamental to understanding the distribution of biodiversity, the changes that are occurring, and the effectiveness of actions to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Accurate and actionable assessments of biodiversity are essential to enable scientists and policymakers to monitor changes, predict future trends, and implement strategies to safeguard our planet’s rich and interconnected tapestry of life.

However, measuring biodiversity is not a simple task given the great complexity of natural systems. It is a task made harder by the lack of standardized approaches to measurement, the plethora of measurement technologies, and the different data needs depending on the purpose for which the information is being gathered. In addition, there is the challenge of taking biodiversity measurements and putting them in a form that decision makers, whether in government or the private sector, and the public can both understand and find usable.

These and other issues regarding biodiversity measurements were the motivating factors behind the US-UK Scientific Forum on Measuring Biodiversity for Addressing the Global Biodiversity Crisis, held May 21–22, 2025, in Washington, DC. Sponsored by The Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the forum aimed to build momentum toward standardized methods for using environmental monitoring technologies and the data they produce, along with the accumulated knowledge of local and Indigenous communities. Toward that end, the forum explored ways to ensure interoperability between different outputs and confidence that observed changes in biodiversity are the result of real changes in what is being measured, and to advance the integration of biodiversity monitoring with evaluation to help ensure that conservation at a variety of scales can be more effective.

After an introductory session that explained what is meant by biodiversity and reviewed who needs to use measurements of biodiversity, four sessions explored the challenges facing biodiversity measurements, how to make measurements matter, the importance of making biodiversity measurements interoperable, and how biodiversity measurements can be used to deliver change. The meeting was not designed to generate conclusions and recommendations but rather observations and ideas on which to build future deliberations and actions. The sessions were rich with examples of how scientists are generating and using measurements to better understand biodiversity and promote action at local and national levels.

For their work in structuring, organizing, and moderating the forum, we would like to thank members of the organizing committee: William (Bill) Sutherland and Gene Robinson (co-chairs of the committee), Neil Burgess, Scott Edwards, Julia Jones, Pam Soltis, and David Tilman. Anna Bashkirova and Jennifer Clements of the NAS and Jonny Hazell and Nathalie Follen-Noto of The Royal Society provided essential staff support. Joe Alper wrote this summary of the forum, and videos of the full event are available on the NAS website.¹

Marcia McNutt
President, National Academy of Sciences

Adrian Smith
President, The Royal Society

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¹ See https://www.nasonline.org/event/us-uk-scientific-forum-on-measuring-biodiversity.