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 UNESCO-IOC
POSITION paper Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) and the 'Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services' (IPBES) More information:
The Ocean Biogeographic Information
System (OBIS), operating under the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(IOC) of UNESCO, wishes to support the
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) with the
issues dealing with marine biodiversity.
Ward Appeltans
OBIS Project Office
UNESCO/IOC Project Office for IODE
Wandelaarkaai 7/61
8400 Oostende, Belgium
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.iobis.org
IPBES will need accurate, both historical and near real-time species observations on a local,
regional and global level. For marine biodiversity assessments, OBIS can play a crucial
role in bridging the gap from data to science to policy making, by coordinating the data
and information flow, from data collection, integration, standardization, validation,
publication to interpretation.
Having this marine focus, OBIS also contributes to GBIF and GEO BON, and seeks to further
extend this collaboration in IPBES.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO wishes to refer to:
1
Paris June 2009, IOC Resolution XXV-4, the Ocean Biogeographic Information
System (OBIS), in which the IOC Member States adopted OBIS as part of IOC’s
International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange Programme and hereby
acknowledged the importance of open-access, global databases on the diversity, distribution
and abundance of marine species, to assist decision makers to sustainably manage our ocean’s
living resources.
2
OBIS providing the world's largest (and ever growing) online data system on marine
biodiversity (http://www.iobis.org). Currently, it aggregates 1,130 datasets, making 35
millions geo-referenced species observations of 120,000 marine species, from the Poles to the
Equator, from the surface of the ocean to the deepest trenches and from Bacteria to whales,
freely available on the Web. A major asset of OBIS is that it integrates species observations
with habitat (depth) and environmental data (e.g., salinity, temperature, oxygen and nutrients:
nitrate, phosphate, silicate) making it an important source of information for climate change
and environmental impact studies.
3
The crucial role OBIS has in contributing to other intergovernmental and
international organizations dealing with global fisheries, environmental and biodiversity
Position Paper – OBIS for IPBES-­‐1. 21-­‐26 January 2013, Bonn issues, including, but not restricted to, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations, the Group on Earth Observations – Biodiversity Observations Network, the Global
Biodiversity Information Facility, and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and its wish
that this unique role regarding marine biodiversity will be continued and expanded in the
future to support the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
4
The decisions of the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological
Diversity (Decision COP10/29 para 10 and 35; Nagoya October 2010) in which Member
States are requested to further enhance globally networked scientific efforts, such as the
Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), to continue to update a comprehensive and
accessible global database of all forms of life in the sea, and further assess and map the
distribution and abundance of species in the sea, and called upon IOC/OBIS to facilitate
availability and inter-operability of the best available marine and coastal biodiversity data sets
and information across global, regional and national scales. In this context, OBIS is
extensively used by the research community and is playing a crucial role in providing
scientific guidance, data and information for the identification of Ecologically or Biologically
Significant marine Areas, through a series of regional workshops in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
This work is part of CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, and in particular Aichi
Biodiversity Target 11 to conserve and sustainably manage at least 10 per cent of coastal and
marine areas by 2020, as agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity in Nagoya in 2010.
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Position Paper – OBIS for IPBES-­‐1. 21-­‐26 January 2013, Bonn