Welcome to the November 2024 edition of our Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) newsletter.
I recently had the pleasure of representing Australia at the 31st meeting of the Global Biodiversity Information Facilities (GBIF) Governing Boarding hosted in Vairao, Vila do Conde Portugal. The event brings together close to 100 international partners that contribute to the network both strategically, and through the provision of biodiversity data and related services. For the ALA this event is critical as it allows us to benchmark our strategic priorities, contextualise our annual workplan against partner priorities, and ultimately engage with our partners to realise technical efficiencies. For example, the planned implementation of GBIF’s unified data model can directly support ALA’s efforts to improve the interoperability of more complex biodiversity data emerging from our partners, including from eDNA, camera trap, and ecoacoustic-based monitoring.
Some of the key themes to emerge from the 2024 Governing Board meeting included the establishment of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Regional Centres and the potential role of biodiversity data infrastructure, improving our collective approach to Indigenous data governance, expansion of the Data4Nature program potentially into Asia and the Pacific, embedding Environment, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG) principles into the operation of research infrastructure, and importantly the critical role of research infrastructure in supporting international biodiversity policy programs, given the meeting preceded the COP16 meeting in Colombia by a few weeks. GBIF had a strong presence at COP16, highlighting the fundamental role data can play in not only supporting policy formulation, but also informing priorities.
As GBIF’s largest national node, ALA continues to play an important global leadership role that is valued across the network. There are opportunities to strengthen this by more actively partnering with GBIF around aligned technical projects and improving our engagement with the international biodiversity data infrastructure community. Elements of this have already commenced, with the ALA recently taking on the leadership role for two years for the Oceania Regional Node, and jointly hosting a regional node meeting with New Zealand in October.
It was a great meeting, with an engaged network of member nations working to a common goal to make biodiversity data more interoperable and accessible.
I hope you enjoy reading our November 2024 Newsletter.
Dr Andre Zerger, ALA Director.