International Connections

I3N Project Initiated

Eleven IABIN countries are receiving grants, software tools, and technical support to inventory their invasive species information as part of the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN) Invasives Information Network (I3N) project. Funding for the grants has been provided by the U.S. State Department. IABIN <www.nbii.gov/iabin> is an international initiative to promote greater coordination among Western Hemisphere countries in the collection, sharing, and use of biodiversity information.

A software tool, the I3N Cataloguer, has been developed by the University of California, Davis. The Cataloguer allows users to build a set of local catalogs describing their country’s invasive species information and to output the records from those catalogs in an XML format. Web harvesters or crawlers can then access and integrate the XML records from all participants. A manual describing how to apply Species Analyst to invasives data sets is also being developed. The project is open to anyone who is interested in participating; the I3N Cataloguer and the Species Analyst manual will be available free of charge.

IABIN Proposal To Be Submitted to GEF

The finishing touches have been put on a proposal to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) requesting $650,000 to fund a consultation process that will define the steps to be taken to implement IABIN in conjunction with the Clearing-House Mechanism (CHM). The CHM <www.biodiv.org/chm/> is an international initiative of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The CHM is designed to facilitate technical and scientific cooperation among countries and to provide global access to and exchange of information on biological diversity. Through the infrastructure created by the implementation of IABIN, the CHM would be able to assist the Parties to the Convention to promote scientific and technical cooperation and to exchange information relevant to their efforts to conserve biodiversity. The IABIN proposal was submitted by the World Bank to the GEF Council in early November; the Organization of American States is currently soliciting letters of support for the proposal from the GEF Focal Points in IABIN countries.

REMIB and Species Analyst To Be Integrated

At the recent meeting of the North American Biodiversity Information Network (NABIN) steering committee, the highest priority was given to the integration of the Species Analyst software tool and the data access tools that are central to the Mexican Biodiversity Information Network, REMIB. The NABIN is a project of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which is part of the North American Free Trade Agreement. NABIN’s objective is to assist institutions and agencies that collect, manage, or use biodiversity data to collaborate on providing broader access to information across North America through an electronic federation model similar to the NBII. Both Species Analyst and REMIB access museum specimen data from geographically distributed databases. Harmonizing the two systems will greatly increase the amount of data available to users of these powerful tools.

Edwards Selected as GBIF Executive Secretary

At the September meeting of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Governing Board, members agreed to offer the position of Executive Secretary of the new GBIF Secretariat to Jim Edwards of the U.S. National Science Foundation. Jim reports to the Secretariat in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 2001. The GBIF <www.gbif.org> will be an interoperable network of biodiversity databases and information technology tools that will enable users to navigate and put to use the world’s vast quantities of biodiversity information to produce national economic, environmental, and social benefits. The NBII is the U.S. node for the GBIF.

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