NBII
Access Newsletter
Newsletter of the National Biological Information Infrastructure
Fall 2003
(Volume 6, Number 4)
The NBII and Guyra Paraguay, a prominent biodiversity conservation non-government
organization, are working together on a proposal for a project that will identify,
accumulate, standardize, and disseminate biodiversity information. This process
will enhance the value of existing data and make them more readily available
to scientists, policy makers, and the public. Guyra Paraguay will provide the
in-country expertise necessary to implement the project and the NBII will provide
tools, logistical support, and technical guidance.
The first phase of the project will consist of a workshop for data managers
of protected areas and owners of sites recognized as Important Bird Areas.
Training in the use of Bioinventory Builder, a custom bioinventory software
tool developed by the Information Center for the Environment (ICE) at the University
of California, Davis, will be provided to workshop participants. This software
tool is used to create standardized, documented, taxonomically harmonized species
inventories of all important natural sites in the country. Site and species
names will be harmonized to international standards and metadata tags added
to enhance the value of these existing data and to enable these data to contribute
to major biodiversity information initiatives. In phase two, Guyra staff will
locate and copy existing biodiversity information
and catalog existing species inventories. The accumulated and standardized
data will then be disseminated via the Internet from both Guyra and ICE servers.
During phase three, project staff will publish the results of their activities
via the project Web sites and in appropriate scientific journals. Guyra will
use the data assembled to prioritize biodiversity sites, and outreach efforts
will educate decision makers.
This project will result in greatly enhanced access to standardized, taxonomically
harmonized bio-inventory data, substantially increasing the value of these
existing, but poorly known and relatively inaccessible data, and allow these
data to contribute toward several national and international biodiversity initiatives,
including the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network, the Global Biodiversity
Information Facility, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is expected
to serve as a model for similar initiatives elsewhere.
The project will complement another NBII - Guyra Paraguay collaboration: making
new photographs of the incredibly diverse Paraguayan wildlife available through
the NBII Image Gallery.
Examples of Guyra Paraguay’s work can be viewed at <http://www.guyra.org.py/>.
The ICE Inventories for Protected Areas Flora and Fauna may be found at <http://ice.ucdavis.edu/mab>.
Please contact Andrea Grosse <agrosse@usgs.gov> or
Emily Medley <emedley@infointl.com> for
further information about the proposed project or to share information about
potential funding opportunities.