Creating a “Digital Earth” – a new Conservation initiative to integrate

Very few attempts have been made to integrate taxonomic and geographic (or geospatial) data, and effectively put these assets to work for conservation, The “digital earth” idea is a new initiative to address this challenge, presented at the 11th meeting of SBSTTA, the technical body of the Convention on Biological Diversity currently taking place in Montreal, Canada. In partnership with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and in conjunction with theWorld Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), an advanced geographic model – “digital earth” - will be applied to the challenge of integrating widely disparate biodiversity data and geospatial information. This will be available on demand and in real time.