International Connections

IABIN Council Meeting, I3N Workshop Held in Miami

National Focal Points and other representatives of Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN) participants met in Miami, FL, in January for the second meeting of the IABIN Council. Convening for the first time in two years, the Council reviewed the work since its first meeting in December 1999, and discussed plans for the next 1-2 years.

Douglas Graham, World Bank representative, announced at the meeting that IABIN's proposal to the Global Environment Fund (GEF) had been "technically cleared," giving IABIN a place in line for GEF funds when they become available later this year. The Organization of American States (OAS), which will serve as the Executing Agency for these funds, presented a draft plan to the Council outlining how OAS intends to implement the project.

The Council also finalized wording for a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Clearing-House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), further defining the collaboration between these two multi-national initiatives.

Peru, Antigua, Barbuda, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) were elected to the IABIN Executive Committee (IEC). The IEC is empowered to act on behalf of the entire Council between Council meetings.

Leads from 12 IABIN countries, plus many of the Council members and guests, convened on the day following the Council meeting for a workshop on the IABIN Invasives Information Network (I3N) Project. Country leads gave presentations on their project plans. The I3N Cataloguer, a software tool developed by the University of California, Davis, to support the input of the project data, was demonstrated and distributed to the leads.

Information on both the Council Meeting and the I3N Workshop is available on the U.S. IABIN Web site <www.iabin-us.org>.

Other International Initiatives

Jim Edwards, National Science Foundation, was selected as Executive Secretary of the GBIF Secretariat. Additional Secretariat staff are being selected in early 2002. The Fourth Governing Board meeting of GBIF <www.gbif.org> will convene in Canberra, Australia, in March 2002.

The North American Biodiversity Information Network is developing a portal to provide a place for North American biodiversity initiatives to interconnect. Beginning with programs of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation <www.cec.org> and its partners, the portal will link with UNEP, NatureServe, Canada's National Atlas, the NBII, and other relevant resources. Portal work has begun on three study cases: grasslands, marine protected areas, and the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative.

Invited experts from around the world participated in a February meeting in Montreal to assist the Clearing-House Mechanism <www.biodiv.org> in identifying possible formats, protocols, and standards for the improved exchange of biodiversity-related data, information, and knowledge. The conclusions of the informal meeting, convened by the CBD Secretariat, will be submitted to the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, to be held in The Hague in April 2002.

IABIN is an international initiative to promote greater coordination among Western Hemisphere countries in the collection, sharing, and use of biodiversity information.  Information on IABIN can be found at www.iabin.org (international site) and at www.iabin-us.org (U.S. site).

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