Establishing a worldwide system of biodiversity networks sharing harmonised data is critical for society, an academic has said.

A global biodiversity observing system (GBIOS) could bring together networks of biodiversity observation sites to supply data to inform progress towards nature-related targets, researchers said in a paper published in the journal Nature.

“Establishing something like GBIOS is really essential. It is really important that we do this because we are trying to mainstream this idea of how important healthy ecosystems are to every aspect of human society,” said Andrew Gonzalez, co-chair of the group and professor at McGill University.

“We have got to this critical point where we really need to work together internationally to set up this system,” Gonzalez told Carbon Pulse.

Guidelines published by the Group on Earth Observations’ Biodiversity Observation Network, on indicators and networks, could help to ensure harmonisation of information gathered, he said.

TNFD MUST GO FURTHER

The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) called for a global nature-related public data facility in August.

Gonzalez welcomed the TNFD proposal but said it needs to go further by including technology and people.

“TNFD is pointing to a data repository. That’s only one element of the overall solution, which must also include the technologies that we use to generate the data … and has to acknowledge the people collecting the data,” he said.

“It is as much about the networks of people that gather information as the computers that we’re going to hook up,” he said. The system would engage national, subnational, and local governments alongside academics, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities, the paper said.

Gonzalez has spoken to members of the World Economic Forum about GBIOS, and intends to communicate with TNFD about it.

BEYOND DATA

GBIOS should go beyond biodiversity data to include analytics, partnership networks, and communications devices, the paper proposed. “All of those go together to form an integrated global observatory for biodiversity,” Gonzalez said.

For example, the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute in Bogota could lead Colombia’s national network, he said.

“It is connected to satellite services, weather networks, citizen groups, you can start to stitch together this network of partners whose job it is to maintain the flow of biodiversity information,” he said.

GBIOS would work in a similar way to how data on the spread of the coronavirus was initially compiled during the pandemic into global comparable figures, he said.

The paper called for a funding facility to support countries that do not have the means to build a national network, some of which could come from the Global Environment Facility fund, Gonzalez said.

GBIOS would help to bring together public and private sectors in providing a single unified biodiversity hub, he added.

“My big fear right now is they’re going to end up producing two separate solutions, and the private sector is going to run away with a lot of capacity and the ability to mobilise resources very quickly.”

“Meanwhile, you have got the public sector trying to develop its own solutions, and those two aren’t talking,” he said.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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