The 17th Meeting of the Governing Board of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) concluded business in Suwon, Korea, on a high note. Delegations unanimously adopted the GBIF Suwon Declaration that underlines the importance of the GBIF network to governments and its relevance to science, conservation and sustainability. Delegates furthermore approved a new, open-ended Memorandum of Understanding (to be signed by all GBIF Participants from 2012) and a budget for the organisation covering the period 2012 – 2016.

“The most recent Governing Board meeting has been held at a critical time - both for our organisation as well as the state of the environment,” said Dr Joanne Daly, Chair of the GBIF Governing Board.  “There has not been a more urgent time to align international efforts to address the numerous environmental challenges we are facing.”  Continued Daly, “GBIF has defined a well-defined niche within this context and will, over the next five years, be able to build on and scale up its impact as a global public good.”

GBIF is the world’s largest multilateral initiative for enabling free access to biodiversity data via the Internet, currently comprising 55 countries and 45 international organisations.  By adopting the GBIF Suwon Declaration on the last day of the Governing Board Meeting, Participants declared their support for the continuation, expansion and enhancement of the GBIF network and the activities the organisation is engaged in.  These include, amongst others, international collaboration on the sharing of biodiversity data, supporting Biodiversity Information Facilities at in-country level, undertaking essential capacity building, ensuring technology transfer, and a global call to others working towards sustainability to join efforts to meet these challenges head on.

A GBIF delegation will present the Declaration to governments present during the high-level segment of the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD CoP10) to be held in Nagoya, Japan, from 27 – 29 October 2010.  The CBD CoP10 is considered the highlight of the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity 2010.

An electronic copy of the Suwon Declaration is available by clicking here.

The Annual GBIF Governing Board Meeting is traditionally held over a period of three days with committee meetings taking place both before and after two days of deliberations on days one and three of the event.   On the second day, the GBIF Science Committee hosts the Annual GBIF Science Symposium.

The topic of this year’s GBIF Science Symposium, the 9th in the series and held on Wednesday, 13 October 2010, was “Trans-Boundary Conservation Areas, Biodiversity Conservation and Peace Parks.”  Speakers included Ms. Maja Vasilijevic, and Drs. Kwi Gon Kim, Helmut Schluprecht, Jorge Soberon, Oliver Chassot, and Nakul Chettri.