Assessing status of ecosystems

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

Agenda 21 recommends: initiating or further developing methodologies and beginning or continuing work on surveys at the appropriate level on the status of ecosystems; establishing baseline information on biological and genetic resources, including those in terrestrial, aquatic, coastal and marine ecosystems, as well as inventories undertaken with participation of local and indigenous people and their communities.