Biodiversity indicators are vital when assessing progress of conservation actions against policy goals and objectives. They form a key part of international frameworks, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and future national frameworks such as the 25 Year Environment Plan. However, with species communities changing rapidly in response to Anthropocene drivers, it must be ensured that indicators represent both the gains and losses experienced by species communities. Indicators and the policies to which they are linked must also be firmly rooted in an international context. Based on these principles we propose expansions and adjustments to the current suite of indicators so that they enable acceptance and facilitation of ‘desirable’ future changes, as well as maintaining species and ecosystems that are globally rare and endangered.
We recommend the inclusion of a range of public as well as professional perspectives so that indicators, and site management plans that stem from them, are co-produced in an inclusive manner. We suggest that a trial process could be created initially for the development of broad-scale indicators, of site and conservation network value, and of site management plans before new schemes are rolled out more widely.