23 April 2012: In its 2011 annual report, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) looks at current achievements and compares them with the original aims of the body.

The report highlights the growing use of data mobilized by GBIF’s global network of participant countries and organizations, in a wide range of peer-reviewed scientific studies. Achievements include: being cited as the source of data for more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers in 2011, making available more than 300 million individual records; new incentives for publishing biodiversity data with the introduction of the “data paper” describing datasets in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal; regional training events and mentoring grants, enabling the publication of several biodiversity datasets, portals and decision-making tools in African countries; and making available information on invasive alien species under a new joint work programme for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Another project involving GBIF was launched by India and Norway in 2011, and sought to demonstrate how digitized data from camera traps can be used to help conservation policy. The pilot project addressed the capacity building component of the new Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). [Publication: GBIF 2011 Annual Report]