Policy makers need to address complexity to make decisions and measure impact of policies. The challenge is that biodiversity is a complex multidimensional concept that goes beyond genetic diversity or ecosystems intactness, as much as poverty goes beyond income, or economics goes beyond the market values of goods and services. There is a renewed interest in how to measure and communicate multidimensional concepts. Sectors such as poverty, development or economy have achieved coping with complexity by creating decomposable indices that summarise complex realities with a view to supporting decision-makers, facilitating communications and placing progress at the centre of the policy arena. Here we present an innovative initiative exploring if our lack of effective action to act upon the biodiversity loss crisis is related to our inability to measure the complexity of biodiversity in an integrated manner, and if it is possible to develop a GDP equivalent for biodiversity.
