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Biodiversity Newsflash 120
October 2022
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| 1 | Wrapping up 29th GBIF Governing Board meeting (GB29)
The Belgian Biodiversity Platform and the Belgian Science Policy Office, on behalf of Belgium, hosted the 29th meeting of the GBIF Governing Board (GB29) in Brussels from 2 to 6 October. The Governing Board is the means by which GBIF participants make collective decisions. It consists of one representative from each participant country and organization. The meeting was very succesful and a new chapter for GBIF has begun, with Liam Lysaght taking over from Tanya Abrahamse as GBIF governing board chair.
Liam wants to acknowledge the strong position of GBIF due to the quality, clarity and strategic nature of the work performed by the secretariat and network staff. He plans to inject a sense of urgency to understand global risks from the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. Liam also stresses the huge responsibility for humanity GBIF, and by extension the scientific world, has.
All GB29 presentations and recordings can be found here.
Recordings of the public session on 5 October ‘Looking forward: working together to achieve GBIF’s strategic priorities' to be found here.
2 | Ebbe Nielsen Challenge and Young Researchers Award 2022
The awards have been granted, and GBIF is proud to announce this year's winners. bdc, which integrates available data-cleaning tools into a single toolkit, and GridDER, which identifies potential sources of inaccuracy arising from the use of gridded surveys in occurrences, have been selected as joint first-prize winners of the 2022 GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge. The GBIF Young Researchers Award has been given to Christopher Schiller. An expert jury has recognized Schiller for developing a novel demonstration of the potential for combining big data from professional and citizen science with machine-learning models to automate global-scale assessments of plant functional diversity. Nominated by the German delegation to GBIF, Schiller is the first German national to receive the award. Congrats to the winners and all participants. We are looking forward to see some great Belgium projects sign up for next year's challenge! Keep an eye out on our pages: facebook - LinkedIn - twitter
3 | Second call for data papers describing datasets on vectors of human diseases
TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases hosted at the World Health Organization, GigaScience Press and GBIF have announced a second call for authors to submit Data Release papers on vectors of human disease for inclusion in a thematic series published in GigaByte Journal.
This call builds on the first part of the series, which mobilized more than 500,000 occurrence records and 675,000 sampling events from more than 50 countries.
The data papers submitted should describe datasets with the following criteria:
- Data has clear relevance for research on vectors of human vector-borne diseases
- Dataset contains more than 5,000 records that are new to GBIF.org in 2022-23, along with high-quality data and metadata
- Data is dedicated to the public domain under an open CC0 designation
The call for manuscripts will be open until 30 April 2023. More information on the call here.
For more information on GBIF related news, please contact André Heughebaert Head of GBIF Belgian delegation at the Belgian Biodiversity Platform.
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| 4 | TDWG annual conference on Biodiversity Information Standards
The TDWG 2022 hybrid conference from 16-21 oct in Sofia, Bulgaria welcomed over 150 on site participants and more than 200 virtual participants. TDWG proved again that this community, where the Belgian Biodiversity Platform is an institutional member (together with INBO Research Institute for Nature and Forest and the Botanic Garden Meise), is the place to discuss biodiversity standards and developing biodiversity informatics issues. All conference abstracts are now freely available in the open access journal, Biodiversity Information Science and Standards (BISS) as TDWG Proceedings 2022.
TDWG will host working sessions of the Interest and Task Groups (IG/TG) during the week of 7-10 November. These sessions will be hosted in Zoom by TDWG and are free but require registration. The interactive working sessions will include introductions, overviews of IG/TG use cases, solutions, collaboration resources, and current work practices.
For more information, please contact Dimitri Brosens, GBIF Node Manager at the Belgian Biodiversity Platform.
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| 5 | FAIR-EASE Project, making access to the diversity of data easier
The new project FAIR-EASE, FAIR EArth Sciences & Environment services, will set up an interdomain digital architecture for integrated use of environmental data, made up of a Data Discovery and Access Service and an Earth Analytical Lab and Data Lake.
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ecosystem collects research data and services and aims at being the main data space for science, by federating existing research and data infrastructures in Europe and realising a web of FAIR data for science, in line with the European Strategy for Data.
There is an urgent need to launch multidisciplinary initiatives and projects to allow collaboration among scientists from different domains. Gateways between metadata standards become essential, to allow the matching of data representations designed for different domains: this is the focus of FAIR-EASE, which has been structured specifically around the requirements from multiple Earth and Environmental Science disciplines, and their thematic research infrastructures.
The FAIR-EASE Project is funded by the European Comission Horizon Europe programme. Read the full press release here.
For more information, please contact Leendert Plaetinck, Communications Officer at the Belgian Biodiversity Platform.
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6 | New Biodiversa+ Flagship Programmes upcoming
Biodiversa+ is happy to announce the launch of two flagship programmes on:
- Better knowledge to develop, deploy and assess Nature-based Solutions
- Supporting societal transformation for the sustainable use and management of biodiversity
For the flagship programme on nature-based solutions, the Biodiversa+ General Assembly decided that it will encompass a call for research proposals to be launched in late 2023. The call will be pre-announced with further information on its topics and the themes that it will address by summer 2023. For more information on the two flagship programmes, consult our SRIA.
7 | Registrations open - 2022 EuropaBON Conference in collaboration with Biodiversa+
The conference Shaping the future European biodiversity monitoring framework will take place on 8 November 2022, from 9:00 to 19:00 CET. This event will provide the opportunity for a range of participants from academia, policymaking, NGOs, government and the private sector to get updates, meet and exchange. In particular, all participants will have the opportunity to draft and discuss tasks and modes of implementation of a future European biodiversity monitoring centre. Register now to join us in Brussels or online! 
8 | Data beyond borders - Event Replay
Biodiversa+ and GBIF have joined forces for “ Data Beyond Borders: collaborating to support biodiversity information needs in Europe and beyond”. This event has provided a forum for key stakeholders to strengthen cooperation between Biodiversa+, GBIF, the European Commission, agencies, research programmes, infrastructures, networks and initiatives to deliver the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the 2050 vision of ‘Living in harmony with nature’ adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Watch the replay!
9 | Biodiversa+ Webinar on the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment
The 9th IPBES Plenary approved the start of a new assessment on the impact and dependence of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. To help experts understand and navigate the IPBES nomination process for this assessment, Biodiversa+ held a dedicated webinar. It is available to watch in replay.
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10 | Final versions available for two IPBES reports
Last Summer, at IPBES-9 in Bonn, the Plenary approved the summary for policymakers and accepted the chapters of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature (“the Values Assessment”) and of the Thematic Assessment of the Sustainable Use of Wild Species. The IPBES is pleased to announce that the final versions of the chapters have now been finalised, to reflect the changes made to the summaries for policymakers at IPBES-9. and are available for download here: The Nature Values AssessmentThe Sustainable Use of Wild Species AssessmentA laid-out version of the summary for policymakers and of the full report will be made available for each one of the two assessments in the coming months.
11 | Gulbenkian Prize for humanity jointly awarded to IPBES and IPCC
The IPBES and the IPCC have jointly been awarded the 2022 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity! Previous winners include the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy and Greta Thunberg. The Prize rewards people or organisations in the recognition of their accomplishments and contributions to solve the climate crisis. The IPBES and the IPCC were selected among 116 nominees from +40 countries. In making their selection, the Jury highlighted how the selection recognizes “ the role of science on the front line of tackling climate change and the loss of biodiversity.” Awarding both IPBES and IPCC at the same time is a powerful statement and strong recognition that both crises go hand in hand and should be addressed together with the same urgency. The award ceremony was held on Thursday, 13 October, in Lisbon, where both winners received their Prize from Dr. Angela Merkel, President of the jury. The 1 million euro prize money will be reinvested in the work for IPBES and IPCC. The Belgian Biodiversity Platform has acted as IPBES NFP for Belgium since IPBES was founded in 2012. For more information, please contact Lise Goudeseune, Science-policy Officer for the IPBES National Focal Point
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13 | LifeWatch news
13.1 Biodiversity day habitat mapping NEW DATE
The Lifewatch Biodiversity day is postponed! The theme will stay the same, but the event will now be held on January 26. An inspiring annual event on biodiversity. Theme of this year is biotope and habitat mapping. Programme info and registration can be found here.
13.2 How do you use marine data hosted in Flanders?
Flanders manages a large amount of marine data. To get an idea of the use and social value of this data, EWI (Science, Technology and Innovation in Flanders) launches a survey in cooperation with OECD. The survey can be found here and will take a maximum of 15 minutes. Thank you very much in advance for your time. more info
13.3 New data product: Extended Continental Shelves
MarineRegions.org is proud to launch the first version of the Extended Continental Shelves dataset. This latest dataset contains the portion of the continental shelf that extends beyond 200 Nautical Miles. Similar to the Exclusive Economic Zones dataset, it consists of both the outer limits of these areas and their polygon representations. For more information on LifeWatch News, please contact Dimitri Brosens, GBIF Node Manager Belgium at the Belgian Biodiversity Platform.
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 Every month we present interesting items in the news we have read and that are worth sharing! Nature, a purely economic resource for mankind?RTBF, the French speaking public-service media broadcaster, released an article on the latest IPBES reports that came out last July. Focusing on the role of wild species and the valuation of nature. ' An evening of hope' with Jane Goodall in BelgiumHer visit will include a public lecture (2 Dec) and a gala evening with a charity auction (3 Dec). The aim of her visit is to reach a wide audience with her 'Reasons for Hope' lecture and to raise funds for the Jane Goodall Institute's activities. For more info on dr. Jane Goodall, the Jane Goodall Institute Belgium and on the ticket sale go to: https://www.janegoodall.be/.  IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology closes major gap in our ability to measure the state of natureTo track and measure the conservation of nature, IUCN came out with a new publication on the classification and assessment of ecosystems. This will help in measuring progress for specific biodiversity goals for the agreement leading up to the CBD COP15 coming December. UNFCCC reports warn about 2.5°C warming amid 'glimmers of hope'The UNFCCC’s second synthesis of countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change finds that while countries are bending the curve of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions downward, their combined climate pledges could put the world on track for around 2.5°C of warming by the end of the century. At the same time, a UNFCCC synthesis of countries’ long-term low-emission development strategies (LEDS) sends a “strong signal” that the world is starting to aim for net-zero emissions. New online tool quantifies contribution to global goals for natureAt its inaugural Leaders Forum, IUCN presented the IUCN Contributions for Nature Platform. This online tool provides governments, civil society and Indigenous Peoples Organisations with a simple way to measure potential contributions from specific actions in specific places towards global biodiversity and climate goals.
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