Integrated approach to the development of biodiversity uplift metrics for investors and conservation project developers.

As large corporations acknowledge and disclose their impact on biodiversity loss, conservationists and biologists are being called upon to deliver a set of metrics that establish investment performance by addressing the disclosure of impact on biodiversity loss, reflect contributions to ecosystem function and deliver least harm and maximum benefit to local communities. In Africa, this is compounded by the reality of intensive use of rural landscapes for subsistence agriculture, the ambition to fund conservation in areas with little human impact and the wide range of habitat types across the continent. The use of terms from the carbon markets (e.g. biodiversity credit) further confuses the nature of what we need to measure to attract investment. This open format session will provide an opportunity to challenge and suggest how we might effectively develop a set of metrics that are appropriate for African ecosystems. Ideally, the outcome from this workshop should be the start of the development of a framework that would guide the development of metrics in diverse landuse types and ecosystems across the continent.