Biodiversity protection and land use

Biodiversity (biological diversity) is a common good, which needs to be carefully preserved. The protection and sustainable use of ecosystems and species contribute to reducing environmental pressure and natural disasters. Healthy and coherent ecosystems also mitigate the effects of global warming. 

One of the global sustainable development goals is to reduce the degradation of natural habitats and halt the loss of biodiversity.

Statistics Estonia publishes the following information on biodiversity, its protection and land use:

• ecosystem extent; 
• nature protection and relevant expenditures;
• land surface area by land use in climate reports.

The statistics can be used to plan nature conservation and biodiversity development, develop a support system and implement landscape and habitat diversity conservation measures.

Ecosystem accounting provides information on the extent, condition, and services offered by ecosystems. The overviews of pilot  ecosystem accounting  development works are available here: methodological report and condition indicators.

This work has been completed as part of the environmental accounting development grant and has been  co-financed by Eurostat (101113157 — 2022-EE-EGD). Explore also the ecosystem accounts map application.

The statistics of compiled ecosystem accounts are experimental, in development and therefore the methods can change in the course of time. The output of experimental statistics may diverge from the traditional requirements of official statistics such as harmonisation, coverage, comparability (geographical and over time) and tried and tested methodology.