The European GBIF Nodes Meeting was hold in March 2010 in Alicante, Spain. The representatives from Finland, Germany, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Poland and Spain as well as other European organisations as PESI, LifeWatch, ETI and Species 2000/4D4 Life attended the meeting. The University of Alicante kindly offered to host this meeting. The objetive was to engage Node Managers in providing technical advice to the Governing Board on issues such as regionalisation, implementation and uptake of the GBIF Work Programme, as well as inputs to the 2011 Work Programme and the 2012-2017 Strategic Plans. The documentation from the meeting is available at the Spanish GBIF portal and soon it will be also at the Community Site.

More information at: www.gbif.es/nodes_meeting_2010.php

The French Node of GBIF organizes the 4th European Nodes Meeting in April 2011 in Paris. All the information regarding the event is available at: http://www.gbif.fr/events/events/show/Home

This initiative pretends to develop a way of scientific colaboration and communication and aims to make the biodiversity information available for all the Iberoamerican region. This information will be useful either for the scientific community and the regional governments.

The Plataforma Iberoamericana para la Información en Biodiversidad, PIIB, takes the contacts and results from the "Red iberoamericana para la conservación e informatización de colecciones biológicas (RECIBIO)" which was supported by CYTED and finished its activities in 2008.

These are the PIIB members: Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental, (CRIA) de Brasil; CONABIO de México; Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP); Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INbio) de Costa Rica; Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; Museo del Instituto de Zoología Agrícola Francisco Fernández Yépez (MIZA) de Venezuela; Museo Nacional de Historia Natural y Antropología de Montevideo en Uruguay; SiB-Colombia and Real Jardín Botánico-CSIC/GBIF España.

More information at: www.recibio.net/PIIB

RECIBIO. RED IBEROAMERICANA PARA LA CONSERVACIÓN E INFORMATIZACIÓN DE COLECCIONES BIOLÓGICAS – SISTEMAS DE INFORMACIÓN

Iberoamerican region covers a paramount diversity in organisms, ecological regions and genetic variants, including domesticated species of human importance. Besides, the region hosts a bunch of relevant scientific institutios and biological collections that play a central role in the preservation of the Iberoamerican biodiversity. In this context, La Red Latinoamericana para la Conservación y Digitalización de Colecciones Biológicas (RECIBIO) is created in 2005 thanks to the support of CYTED Network. It is currently represented by 14 Institutions from 9 countries.

This network focuses on two main aspects: data collection, storage and access; and preservation of specimens. The network will also work to facilitate the development of taxonomic expertise.

The Coordination Unit of GBIF.ES participates in two ways:

• On one hand, the availability of biodiversity data on Internet is one of the aims of GBIF. So, the Iberoamerican participation would be basic for the biodiversity understanding, conservation and management from local to global perspectives.
• On the other hand, The Coordination Unit promotes the collaboration and the mutual scientific and technological benefit between Iberoamerican countries and Spain.

More information: www.recibio.net