The UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is a collaboration centre of

UN Environment Programme The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...

, based in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. UNEP-WCMC has been part of UN Environment Programme since 2000, and has responsibility for

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

assessment and support to policy development and implementation. The World Conservation Monitoring Centre was previously an independent organisation jointly managed by

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

, UN Environment Programme and WWF established in 1988. Prior to that, the centre was a part of the IUCN Secretariat.

Areas of work

The activities of UNEP-WCMC include biodiversity assessment, support to international conventions such as the

Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...

(CBD) and the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of intern ...

(CITES), capacity building and management of both aspatial and spatial data on species and habitats of conservation concern. UNEP-WCMC has a mandate to facilitate the delivery of the global indicators under the CBD's

2010 Biodiversity Target The 2010 Biodiversity Target was an overall conservation target aiming to halt the decline of biodiversity by the end of 2010. The world largely failed to meet the target. History of the 2010 Biodiversity Target It was first adopted by EU Heads of ...

on the rate of loss of biological diversity, and works alongside the CITES Secretariat producing a range of reports and databases. It also manages the World Database of Protected Areas in collaboration with the

World Commission on Protected Areas The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) is one of six commissions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). History In 1948, the IUCN established a Committee on National Parks. Two decades later the IUCN had been ask ...

. A series of world atlases on biodiversity topics have been published by UNEP-WCMC through

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

. UNEP-WCMC has expertise across six thematic areas: * Mainstreaming biodiversity into sustainable development; * Strengthening

natural capital Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of t ...

in private sector decision-making; * Planning for places; * Securing a sustainable future for wildlife; * Supporting the transition to a healthy ocean; * Supporting intergovernmental agreements on biodiversity and

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. Th ...

. These thematic areas are supported by cross-cutting expertise in science, economics, knowledge management and digital innovation.

Resources and data

UNEP-WCMC has created a considerable amount of resources and data Some notable datasets include: * The Ocean Data Viewer (containing datasets of the global distribution of seagrasses, mangroves, coral reefs, cold-water corals, and saltmarshes) *

World Database on Protected Areas The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the largest assembly of data on the world's terrestrial and marine protected areas, containing more than 260,000 protected areas as of August 2020, with records covering 245 countries and territori ...

(WDPA) * Protectedplanet.net,Protectedplanet.net page on UNEP-WCMC
/ref> which is an on-line interface for the WDPA

References

External links

UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
{{Authority control International environmental organizations Organisations based in Cambridge Science and technology in Cambridgeshire United Nations Environment Programme United Kingdom and the United Nations