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Side Event

The Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook: a 10-year roadmap for biodiversity intelligence

Organizer
Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat

Date and Time
11 October 2012 18:15 - 19:45

Meeting
Eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 11)

In July 2012, the Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC) in Copenhagen brought together more than 100 invited experts from the fields of biodiversity informatics, genomics, earth observation, natural history collections, biodiversity research and policy. During three days of cross-disciplinary workshops, participants developed the foundations of a 10-year vision and roadmap for harnessing the power of information technologies and social networks to support biodiversity knowledge and decision making. The event will launch the outcome of those discussions, the Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook. It is, in effect, a 10-year shared vision for global collaboration on biodiversity intelligence, outlining the key elements required for improved information tools including those needed for fulfilment of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Priorities identified during the conference included: *Making best use of the huge potential for the public to become part of a global biodiversity knowledge network as both contributors and beneficiaries, using latest technologies, social networks and local/indigenous knowledge; * Capturing through all available technologies the complexity of interactions among species – for example predators/prey, parasites/hosts and pollinators – as well as their traits. The technologies will include acoustic monitoring and remote sensing, and will help analyse these interactions to establish their importance in providing ecological services to people; * Greatly improving the capability to provide predictive modelling across different scales, estimating the impact of specific environmental changes on biodiversity for any point on Earth, and the resulting disruption of ecological services to people and communities; *Expanding the current network of linked data from species names and museum collections up to satellite images of ecosystems and down to DNA in micro-organisms; *Shining a light on hitherto hidden layers of biodiversity, for example using gene sequencing capabilities to understand the millions of kinds of microbes inhabiting the air, oceans, soils and higher organisms throughout the world, and their role in controlling the life support systems of the planet. The event will be addressed by several participants in the team developing GBIO, which included representatives from: The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Secretariat, UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Bioversity International, EU Joint Research Centre (JRC), South Africa National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia.