Various biodiversity indicators are currently in use, but none of them have been tested for their correlation with the particular aspect or entity of biodiversity that they are meant to indicate. We propose a procedure to design value-specific indicator sets based on the main motivations of stakeholders to protect or enhance biodiversity in cultivated landscapes: species conservation, ecological resilience, and ecosystem functioning such as biological control or pollination. The approach includes the following steps:
1. Defining the value systems and measuring the appropriate aspects and entities as thoroughly and comprehensively as possible in national test areas for biodiversity assessment.
2. Measuring or calculating (by rarefaction) all kinds of indicators within the test areas and correlate their values with the "reality" of the assessed value systems.
3. Group the best concordant indicators into value baskets to form an index, e.g. the "biodiversity index for conservation".