Eye on Biodiversity

Special Initiative: Eye on BiodiversityThis Special Initiative focuses on the incentives required to motivate people to share biodiversity data and information. It is recognised that there is a substantial amount of information and data which could help address current biodiversity and ecosystem challenges, however there is much collected which is not shared, and much shared which is not connected and visible. The cost of sharing is also acknowledged and the challenge remains to provide an infrastructure where the benefits from sharing are simple, immediate and self-evident.

The active sharing of data and subsequent clear articulation of issues to inform national dialogues, policies and priority setting will be delivered through the following channels:

(a) A transparent platform for recognition and profile;

(b) A movement to encourage governments, publishers, funders and academia to recognise and require sharing;

(c) A comprehensive set of people-sized tools to allow individuals to visualise, explore and manage their own data; and

(d) A distributed network for the straightforward sharing of the data collated and managed by the toolkit.

The effectiveness of this approach will demonstrated through (a) unlocking Environmental Impact Assessment Data and; (b) providing data for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.