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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Dear Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) list
members</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>I thought the following post to the Conservation Commons
list should be of broad interest. Éamonn O Tuama of GBIF and I (representing
TDWG) attended the first of the IUCN-OASIS meeting in Gland last month (see <A
href="http://www.tdwg.org/homepage-news-item/article/lee-attends-iucn-oasis-workshop-on-biodiversity-standards/">http://www.tdwg.org/homepage-news-item/article/lee-attends-iucn-oasis-workshop-on-biodiversity-standards/</A>).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>A second meeting hosted by Conservation International
in Arlington is planned for June 26 .</FONT> <FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Éamonn and I plan to attend. I've made the suggestion
to Tom Hammond of IUCN that a key requirement before this meeting is a set
of use-cases. <SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Recent initiatives on interoperability standards for biodiversity data
such as this one in IUCN, EoL and the ILTER are generating a healthy pressure
for TDWG to have quality packaged solutions that
address client needs.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>I'm keen to hear any other comments from list members about
key issues that should be presented or positions taken. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Cheers</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=140153600-30052007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Lee</FONT></SPAN></DIV><!-- Converted from text/plain format -->
<P><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Lee Belbin<BR>Manager, TDWG
Infrastructure Project<BR>Email: lee@tdwg.org<BR>Phone: +61(0)419 374 133
</FONT></P>
<DIV> </DIV><BR>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> Chucri Sayegh
[mailto:chucri.sayegh@iucn.org] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, 30 May 2007 12:24
AM<BR><B>To:</B> biod_commons@indaba.iucn.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> [Conservation
Commons] Biodiversity standards project aims for better government and business
decisions <BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>source : <A
href="http://www.ictstandardization.com/news/200705/article20070564.html">http://www.ictstandardization.com/news/200705/article20070564.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#ff0000><FONT size=6><STRONG><SMALL><SMALL><SMALL><SPAN
style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)">Biodiversity standards project aims for better
government and business decisions</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"></SPAN><BIG></BIG></SMALL></SMALL></SMALL><BR></STRONG></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><BR></DIV>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">An IUCN/OASIS biodiversity project aims to better
tap the vast sea of statistical data on endangered species and protected areas
for better information sharing and decisions by business and government.
<BR></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">One of the huge challenges in biodiversity
conservation is managing the vast quantities of data generated so people can use
it, said Tom Hammond, senior program advisor at The World Conservation Union
(IUCN). Much biodiversity data is either unavailable or not easily
accessible because of fragmentation of data, lack of access or interoperability,
IUCN said.</P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">The US Geological Survey’s National Biodiversity
Information Infrastructure (NBII) program is essentially tackling domestically,
the same questions that the IUCN/OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards) partnership is at the international level,
“trying to integrate all the biodiversity data and information generated at
county level and federally, into one common [information] infrastructure,”
Hammond said: “NBII is part of this process.” Canada and other of IUCN's
80 member countries are essentially trying to do the same thing, Hammond
said. Many initiatives to improve access to and leveraging of biodiversity
data are taking place in governments, scientific and research organizations and
in the private sector, Hammond said: “Very few of these initiatives are talking
to each other."<BR></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Biodiversity information could be accessed in common
ways no matter where the information is being maintained, Patrick Gannon,
president and CEO of OASIS said: “Data gets managed wherever it’s best gathered
and managed.” Organizations that need the data shouldn’t need multiple
kinds of interfaces to access it, Gannon said. “This is a common refrain
that many, particularly companies in the resource sector – oil and gas, mining,
forests, agriculture – many companies are beginning to step up and say,” they
need to make better, more informed decisions about where they conduct their
business on the ground, Hammond said. <BR></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Seventy-six organizations have committed to open
access to biodiversity data by signing up to a global partnership called the
Conservation Commons, Hammond said. They are conservation groups,
scientific organizations, government agencies like NASA and NBII, companies like
Rio Tinto, Shell and Chevron, Hammond said: “From a private sector company’s
point of view, that’s fairly significant because that gets down to issues of
disclosure. Many of these companies generate their own data when it comes to
their field operations and these companies have formally signed up to say they
will make available the data that they generate for whatever field operations
they’re involved in." <BR></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Geospatial approaches will be “the platform upon
which we’re going to generate a lot of this work,” because the data is from some
geographic place on the planet, Hammond said: “Essentially what we’re doing is
identifying the minimum standards we need so we can at least share data.” The
work builds on open standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium, global and
regional species taxonomy standards, on-line publishing and referencing, Service
Oriented Architectures and others, IUCN said. The work of a group called
Biodiversity Information Standards will also be involved. <BR></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">The first step in the process will be identifying
what standards work is out there that can be leveraged and what’s missing,
Hammond said: “There’s a minimum list of criteria that you absolutely have to
have access to” if you’re a CEO or a director of a government ministry making a
decision. Endangered species, protected areas, key biodiversity areas
outside of protected areas, critical ecosystems for the generation of ecosystem
goods and services like water, fiber, maintaining soils and non-timber forest
products “is a very short list of some very key ecosystem and biodiversity
elements that we would like to make sure that anyone would have access to,”
Hammond said. A June meeting in Arlington, Virginia (USA) will begin to
tackle the issues. There will be 3 major thrusts: 1) Species; 2) Habitat; 3)
Biodiversity conservation vocabulary, which deals with scientific publishing.
<BR></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">OASIS and IUCN have been working together for about
a year, Gannon said. OASIS will form a Biodiversity Conservation Member
Section to work with IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Standards initiative and
the Conservation Commons, IUCN said. An OASIS steering committee
will identify various data standards committees and the order that the work
progresses.</P></DIV><BR><BR><BR><BR>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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