Island and Ocean Ecosystems
A workshop which aims to enhance the capacity of Pacific nations to share and access data relating to the region's biodiversity is being held at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) campus this week.
Organised as part of the Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) programme (http://www.gbif.org/programme/bid), the workshop is helping project teams from the Pacific to plan and implement biodiversity data digitization efforts effectively.
Participants will leave the workshop with wider knowledge of planning a digitisation project, biodiversity data digitisation, data curation, formatting and transformation, and data publishing using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT).
The event will also include discussion about building the lasting collaborations at regional and global level to sustain biodiversity data sharing and access into the future.
"The availability of biodiversity data is essential for making good decisions for environmental management. The Pacific has been fortunate to receive assistance through the BID programme for several important data mobilisation projects on various themes which will make data available not just for the Pacific but for others who are interested in assisting the Pacific, " said Mr David Moverley SPREP Invasive Species Adviser.
Participants of during a session on Day 1 of the workshop. Photo: SPREP
BID was started in 2015 by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) as a multi-year, €3.9 million programme funded by the European Union, with the aim of increasing the amount of biodiversity information from the 'ACP' nations of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific, for use in scientific research and policy making. BID has a special focus on mobilising data relating to biodiversity in protected areas, threatened species and invasive alien species.
Tim Hirsch, Deputy Director of GBIF, who is attending the workshop, commented: "It is really exciting to see projects getting under way in the Pacific that will unlock essential data on the rich diversity of species in the region, as well species introduced from other regions, and hopefully lead to lasting collaborations to help inform conservation of the biological resources on which the Pacific peoples depend. We are grateful to SPREP for hosting the workshop and look forward to continued cooperation on providing free and open access to biodiversity data."
The workshop started on Monday 24 July and ends Thursday 27 July 2017.
Organised as part of the Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) programme (http://www.gbif.org/programme/bid), the workshop is helping project teams from the Pacific to plan and implement biodiversity data digitization efforts effectively.
Participants will leave the workshop with wider knowledge of planning a digitisation project, biodiversity data digitisation, data curation, formatting and transformation, and data publishing using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT).
The event will also include discussion about building the lasting collaborations at regional and global level to sustain biodiversity data sharing and access into the future.
"The availability of biodiversity data is essential for making good decisions for environmental management. The Pacific has been fortunate to receive assistance through the BID programme for several important data mobilisation projects on various themes which will make data available not just for the Pacific but for others who are interested in assisting the Pacific, " said Mr David Moverley SPREP Invasive Species Adviser.
Participants of during a session on Day 1 of the workshop. Photo: SPREP
BID was started in 2015 by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) as a multi-year, €3.9 million programme funded by the European Union, with the aim of increasing the amount of biodiversity information from the 'ACP' nations of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific, for use in scientific research and policy making. BID has a special focus on mobilising data relating to biodiversity in protected areas, threatened species and invasive alien species.
Tim Hirsch, Deputy Director of GBIF, who is attending the workshop, commented: "It is really exciting to see projects getting under way in the Pacific that will unlock essential data on the rich diversity of species in the region, as well species introduced from other regions, and hopefully lead to lasting collaborations to help inform conservation of the biological resources on which the Pacific peoples depend. We are grateful to SPREP for hosting the workshop and look forward to continued cooperation on providing free and open access to biodiversity data."
The workshop started on Monday 24 July and ends Thursday 27 July 2017.