Dear TDWG List Member:

This year's TDWG meeting will be held in Indaiatuba, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. Our hosts this year are Dr. Vanderlei Perez Canhos and his staff at "CRIA", the Reference Center for Environmental Information (Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental).

The TDWG meeting will occupy two days in a larger forum on biodiversity informatics, which will include a Species 2000 meeting, a symposium on "Key Innovations in Biodiversity Informatics" and several satellite workshops.

The main TDWG meeting will take place on the weekend of October 19-20. The primary focus of the meeting will be an examination of the four "work programs" recently established by the Global Biodiversity Informatics Facility (GBIF), and exploring with GBIF staff how best to pursue the development of standards that will promote the interchange of biodiversity information.

Sunday will be largely devoted to presentations and demonstrations, and there is still plenty of room in the schedule if you would like to inform your colleagues of your recent work.

TDWG subgroups will meet in the days before the plenary sessions, and the symposium on will take place on the following Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 21-22).

Please see the web site for additional details about the events, schedule, travel, visas, and hotels. http://www.cria.org.br/eventos/tdbi/.

Registration forms should be available on the web site by the end of this week. In the mean time, the following estimates of expenses (in US$) for TDWG events might help you with your planning: Travel: ?? Visa: ?? Hotel: $70/night TDWG Registration: $80 TDWG Banquet: $40 Symposium Registration: $20

Please contact me (sblum@calacademy.org) if you would like to give a presentation or demonstration on Sunday, October 20.

I think this promises to be a very significant set of meetings. I hope to see you there,

Stan Blum Chair, TDWG Exec. Comm.