Meredith Christine Schuman , Claudia Röösli, Alicia Mastretta Yanes, Katie Millette, Isabelle Helfenstein, Wolke Tobón-Niedfeldt, Cristiano Vernesi, Clement Albergel, Ghassem R Asrar, Linda Laikre, Michael E Schaepman

By providing images of the globe, measured frequently across several optical domains, in the form of public
data, EO has high potential to facilitate and advance biodiversity monitoring. However, there is currently a consensus that EO cannot contribute to monitoring genetic diversity. Here, we challenge this consensus by explaining
how EO can help to develop the headline and complementary indicators of genetic diversity recently adopted at the
15th Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP15). We propose that EO should be rapidly integrated into genetic diversity monitoring workflows to accelerate the ongoing development of these indicators while helping Parties fulfill their
reporting commitments.