Ottar Michelsen BIODIVERSITY INDICATORS AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

Preface This report was originally prepared as a part of the compulsory organised training programme in my doctoral studies in environmental management. The report was the outcome of a subject called 'Biodiversity indicators and environmental performance evaluations' which was organised as an individually adapted list of set literature (DI-LSF01). After the evaluation and due to fruitful discussions with after the presentation of the final report, the report has revised and to some degree extended. The intention has been to go through a set of methods for biodiversity impact assessment and both evaluate to what degree these methods are built on valid ecological assumptions and also if they can be used to include biodiversity considerations in environmental performance evaluations. An outline for a new approach to include biodiversity considerations is presented. Chapter 1 is a presentation of the problem that is addressed. Chapter 2 is focusing on loss of biodiversity and why this is a problem. Here it is also argued that biodiversity should be the main focus when addressing land use changes in environmental performance evaluations. In chapter 3 different measures of biodiversity is presented, and chapter 4 give a brief introduction to the link between present forestry methods and loss of biodiversity. In chapter 5 different existing methodologies to include biodiversity considerations are presented and a new approach is outlined. and Technology, who were responsible for the subject.