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USGS Ecosystems Status & Trends About the Program

About the Program

The Importance of Monitoring
The Nation's living resources and the habitats on which they depend are undergoing constant change. To protect and conserve the living resources entrusted to their care, land and resource managers must first understand the condition, or status, of those resources (what and how many there are, where they are, how well they are doing), and their trends (how they are changing over time and space).

The USGS Status and Trends of Biological Resources Program responds to these information needs by providing the Department of the Interior, other government agencies, and the public with science-based monitoring data and information for local, regional, and national assessment of our biological resources and their supporting ecosystems.

Program Mission
The mission of the USGS Status and Trends of Biological Resources Program is to measure, predict, assess, and report the status and trends of the Nation's biological resources to facilitate research, enable resource management and stewardship, and promote public understanding and appreciation of our living resources.

The Program's Strategic Plan will enhance successful fulfillment of our mission by better meeting the biological inventory and monitoring information needs of the land and resource management community. By setting clear goals, strategies, and measures of success, this Plan will guide development of a more cohesive, unified program over the next five years. The Plan outlines strategies for increasing communication, cooperation, and collaboration among the USGS, its partners, and other stakeholders involved in biological resource monitoring. It envisions a process whereby scientifically valid biological status and trends information is readily available to land and resource managers and the public to inform and enable sound stewardship of the Nation's biological resources.