Title: Preserving biodiversity knowledge from impact assessment
Professionals assessing the environmental impact of proposed large projects are being urged to share the biodiversity data they generate. A new Best Practice Guide produced by GBIF and the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) explains the straightforward steps required to ensure that biodiversity data remain accessible for future decision-making, scientific research and society as a whole. The guide was prepared in response to concern that vital data on occurrence of species at and around a proposed project site, gathered in the preparation of environmental impact assessments (EIAs), are often discarded and lost at the end of the project planning process.
Pilot projects in South Africa and India have helped to develop tools to facilitate the publication of biodiversity data from EIA through the GBIF network, making them freely available via the Internet.
It provides a step-by-step guide for environmental assessment professionals, explaining the process of selecting software tools, preparing datasets and publishing them according to agreed global standards and protocols.GBIF director Dr Nicholas King said, “Environmental impact assessment work globally generates an enormous amount of data about biodiversity that represents vital information for science and society.
“It makes no sense for that information to be thrown away once decisions about a project are made. This guide shows that with very little additional effort, biodiversity data can be published and preserved for future generations.”
The CEO of the IAIA, Rita Hamm, added: “IAIA members are keen to provide the most credible and objective assessment of projects, plans and policies, and the key to any quality assessment is the quality of the data upon which it is based.
“IAIA is pleased to partner with GBIF to promote this guide to capturing and maintaining primary biodiversity data gathered during EIA processes.”
For more information Tim Hirsch GBIF Secretariat thirsch@gbif.org >br>Vishwas Chavan GBIF Secretariat vchavan@gbif.org