The Eye on Biodiversity SI was formed in 2011 and has over 60 members with good gender and geographic representation. Jane Glavan is the new facilitator. The SI meets monthly via Webex and uses a Basecamp portal to share documents. It focuses on incentivizing the sharing of biodiversity information. There is currently one pilot project underway to make biodiversity data from environmental impact assessments more accessible. The community is working on developing a vision statement and preparing new project proposals.

1. he Eye on Biodiversity SI was formed during the 2011 Eye on Earth Summit and has grown
to a membership of over 60 stakeholders with a broad geographic representation and good
gender balance. All other SI facilitators and several stakeholders also have membership to
increase cross-SI opportunities.
Recently, Jane Glavan, AGEDI Partnership Manager (jglavan@ead.ae) was assigned to be the new
facilitator of the SI. There is no consensus chair within the SI as it is decided upon on a rotating
basis. This provides the community equal opportunity to help support and guide the direction of the
monthly meeting so that it best addresses the community needs.
The SI meets via Webex on a monthly basis based on the best availability of the community. A shared
community area was created on Basecamp where the community can share documents, discussions
as well as post potential funding opportunities and conference presentations. The Portal is kept up
to date by the community as well as by the SI Facilitator.
KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR SI
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T
EYE ON BIODIVERSITY SI AT A GLANCE
Formation Eye on Earth Summit 2011
Membership 60 international stakeholders
Chair Chair appointed on a rotating basis
Steering Committee under development
Meetings via Webex each month, subject to availability of the community
(Basecampportalcreatedforsharingofdocuments,discussions,
funding opportunities and conference presentations)
Facilitator Jane Glavan, AGEDI Partnership Manager - jglavan@ead.ae
STRUCTURE AND GOVERNANCE
MISSION STATEMENT
Eye on Biodiversity focuses on the incentives required to further motivate people, government
agencies and organizations to share their information and data on biodiversity, particularly with
regard to Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration1
and acknowledges Article 8(j) of the Convention on
Biological Diversity2
.
The incentives for data sharing suggested as part of this initiative are not financial. Instead they
focus on sustainable measures such as acknowledgement of data sources, tools for simplifying
data sharing, more effective achievement of desired conservation outcomes (such as the Aichi
Biodiversity Targets3
), and a broad movement to both reward and mandate sharing of biodiversity-
related information and data.
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1. See http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=78&articleid=1163
2. calls on its Parties to: respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities
embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider
application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the
equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices.
3. See http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/

2. CURRENT PROJECTS
There is one current pilot projects funded through
the support of AGEDI:
1. Unlocking biodiversity Data from
Environmental Impact Assessments
(EIAs), This project seeks to render primary
biodiversity data obtained during EIAs more
accessible for subsequent uses. Adding such
data to publicly-accessible datasets will
benefit biodiversity science, conservation
and future decisions based on environmental
impact assessment. This project will establish
a framework for capturing EIA-related primary
biodiversity data in the Arabian Gulf region,
and develop tools for promoting good practice
on data publication from impact assessments
throughout the world. The project will build
on work carried out by the Global Biodiversity
Information Facility (GBIF) in collaboration
with project partners to develop an EIA-
related biodiversity data publishing framework.
Previous projects under the SI include
the Local, National, and Regional
Biodiversity Systematic Conservation
Planning Project, which completed in 2013.
UPCOMING MEETINGS AND
WORKSHOPS
Planning is being undertaken to finalize the location
and timing of the Unlocking Biodiversity Data
from EIAs project capacity building workshop.
The community is also looking at holding side
meetings where there is a natural convergence of
the community, such as the World’s Park Congress,
November 2014.
FUTURE PROJECT PLANS
The community is currently looking towards creating
its SI vision statement, direct feedback mechanisms
into the summit, as well as coming together as
a community to prepare both project fiches and
concept notes.
CROSS SI OPPORTUNITIES
There are critical links with the foundational SIs
as they support direct areas which closely touch
upon challenges we face such as incentivizing data
sharing and knowledge dissemination. There are
also obvious touch points with each of the other SIs,
including Oceans and Blue Carbon, CSR and Disaster
Management.
KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR SI