Proper organization of biodiversity data and its accessibility is of great
importance for the elaboration of policies and strategies, strategic assessments
and identification of intervention priorities, both at global and national
level. Electronic access to biodiversity information is a priority task
worldwide, especially since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
This interest led to a strong progress in the field of Biodiversity Informatics,
which produced important results, such as the creation of global federated
networks of biodiversity data (the GBIF –
http://www.gbif.org/
– and the BioCASE –
http://www.biocase.org/
), as well as several national initiatives.
While Albania hosts a considerable and important biodiversity heritage, the
corresponding biodiversity data in the digital form is still limited mainly due
to the lack of resources and an absence of the long-term vision and strategy. In
the framework of the project "Institutional Support to the management of Protected Areas in Albania"
financed by the
Italian Development Cooperation
and implemented by
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
,
the experience gained through global and local initiatives has been transferred
to Albania to create an infrastructure for the standardization, integration and
dissemination of national biodiversity information.
The national biodiversity data is now available through the website Biodiversity
National Network of Albania (BioNNA) representing an important “entry-point” for any initiative aiming to
support decisions related to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.
The BioNNA offers the information on the species occurrences through an open
source Web-GIS system developed according to the standards defined by the EU
INSPIRE Directive.
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