In addition to the protection goals, national legislations sometimes also define “assessment endpoints”. Assessment endpoints are valued biological or ecological entities that need to be protected and have some attribute that is measurable.

Ecological assessment endpoints, for instance, are most easily expressed in terms of impacts on a valued species (e.g. survival and reproduction of the yellow fin tuna). Any component, from virtually any level of biological organization or structural form that is recognized as an entity that needs to be protected, can be considered an assessment endpoint.

Once a risk assessment has been triggered, the risk assessor(s) will need to identify the relevant protection goals and assessment endpoints when these are available. The risk assessor(s) then determines which assessment endpoints are meaningful to the specific case at hand to ensure that the protection goals will be adequately covered. For example, the regulatory framework of a country may identify “agricultural biodiversity” as one of its protection goals and the risk assessor(s) may be asked to consider, as an assessment endpoint, the abundance of a valued species, for example an insect pollinator, in the environment where the LMO may be released.

Selecting endpoints is among the most critical aspects when preparing a conceptual model for the risk assessment as it contributes to setting the stage for the risk assessment and the remaining steps of the process (see Module 3). In conclusion, before undertaking a risk assessment of an LMO, risk assessors and other biosafety officers must understand national protection goals and the importance of deciding upon relevant assessment endpoints in order to plan a risk assessment.