Workshop: Matching Information to Needs

Creating adequate policies to protect natural areas and biodiversity requires the adequate mobilisation of consistent, relevant and structured biodiversity information aimed at guiding decision-making.
We need the best available evidence with to:

1. Evaluate policies and the fulfilment of goals established in strategic documents and regulations. 
2. Understand of the links between biodiversity (species/habitats) and the condition of the ecosystem (vitality, resilience and productivity) and between the condition of the ecosystem and its capacity to deliver ecosystem services.  
3. Understand past and potential future change in a key thematic or sectoral field. 

At the inter-regional seminar in Wallonia in February, we addressed the subject of information needs for decision-making and identified the strengths and weaknesses in this area.  
This second workshop will focus on analysing how information can help to satisfy the needs identified and whether the information we currently generate meets those needs or not. We will start from the basis of weaknesses and strengths and proposals for improvement identified in the first workshop.  
Key stakeholder representatives will exchange experiences and views of how biodiversity and environmental information is generated in different contexts ranging from citizen science platforms to research environments. How information is collected, maintained and validated will be explored and successful experiences documented and structured to serve as a basis for new developments in other regions.