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Abstract: The fourth Regional Meeting of the GBIF Participant Nodes in Asia was held on 28 – 30 June 2012 at the Leader Hotel in Taipei, Chinese Taipei. The major purpose of the regional meeting was to agree on an Asia Regional Plan of Action, based on the results and recommendations of the two previous Asia meetings and from this meeting, lessons shared from two keynote speakers and invited experts from the region. Dr. Kwang-Tsao Shao, director of TaiBIF project, welcomed the invited guests and participants to the meeting. He provided a brief background on TaiBIF, introduced the national committee of agencies in Chinese Taipei that is chaired by Academia Sinica. He also thanked GBIF for the support provided to convene this meeting. Olaf Banki, Senior Programme Officer for Participation at GBIF, thanked the organizers and acknowledged the efforts of TaiBIF in organizing the meeting. He recalled the third regional meeting convened in Tokyo when Sheila Vergara of ACB was elected as Asian region representative. Olaf also elucidated on options on how work collaboration can happen in the region and looked forward to discussing and resolving regional issues. Each participant at the meeting then took turns introducing him/herself. Dr. Yu-Huang Wang, Node Manager of TaiBIF, introduced Dr. John Porter, the information manager of US LTER from the University of Virginia, and Dr. William Chang of the US National Science Foundation. Dr. Porter gave a talk entitled ‘An Introduction to the US LTER Network’ and Dr. Chang talked about NSF biodiversity research and training in the East Asia and Pacific region. It was decided that the meeting will be conducted informally. Following the two keynote talks, clarifications and questions were graciously answered by the guests and the rest of the first meeting day was spent on a) providing updates on GBIF related activities since the last meeting in Tokyo in March 2012 and b) identifying preliminary inputs to the regional plan of action. The second day framed the structure of the regional plan, discussed eight options on science themes / topics that were to be undertaken as one of the plan’s major components, and after a facilitated discussion on the possibilities by which these suggestions could be implemented, the group decided to pursue the discussion of two major reachable topics: (1) Making species checklist at national level, including invasive, Red List, endemic species and migratory birds; and (2) Updating fish databases to assess fish biodiversity loss and risk in Asia. Node managers were divided into two groups for further detailed discussions in order to put forth concrete work plans.