Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: MA Biodiversity

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: MA Biodiversity provides data and information on amphibians, disease agents (extent and distribution of infectious and parasitic diseases), drylands (cattle, sheep and goats, and pasture), islands (fishing pressure, sewage pollution index and tourism), loss of natural land cover (biomes and realms), polar population, species distribution models, and terrestrial ecoregions and realms. Biodiversity is defined as the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part. The original information was received from multiple sources that include the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, formerly the World Conservation Union), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) of Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on-board NASA satellites Terra and Aqua. Through the Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention on Migratory Species, the data were also designed to meet the needs of stakeholders in the business, civil and native communities.