Western Balkans

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

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GBIO

New platform for using latest ICT to share knowledge on biodiversity worldwide

A JRC co-authored report outlining a framework for better understanding of the world's biodiversity was released today. The Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook (GBIO) report, compiled by 17 international contributing authors, describes a framework for using the latest communication technologies to share information on biodiversity on a global scale. It is the result of a call for action that arose from the Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference of around 100 experts from all over the world who gathered in Copenhagen in July 2012, to identify critical questions relating to biodiversity and the tools needed to answer them.

The GBIO framework aims to help focus efforts and investment towards a better understanding of life on Earth and the impacts of human activities upon it. It is built on four mutually complementary and reinforcing focus areas, Culture, Data, Evidence and Understanding, which aim to help establish recognised global standards and practices, gather and organise past and developing information on biodiversity and make this readily available in digital format, and build models to support research and planning activities. The JRC’s Digital Observatory of Protected Areas (DOPA) is presented as one of the tools within the GBIO to assess the status, trends and impacts of potential changes in biodiversity.

The GBIO is intended to be a dynamic and interactive process. A dedicated website, ‘GBIO – delivering biodiversity knowledge in the information age’, will gather information on projects, solutions and funding sources. All members of the community of interested parties, from policy makers to investors to researchers to the general public, are invited to contribute to this website with their ideas and expertise. The ultimate objective of the GBIO is to bring together and make available harmonised and comprehensive information of the biodiversity of our planet, and how best to protect it.