What Can Obis Do For A New Un Treaty On Marine Biodiversity In The Open Ocean-

What can OBIS do for a new UN Treaty on marine biodiversity in the open ocean?The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) has the foundational technology and methodology for robust data integration, development of products and services and fundamentally being a science mission can serve as a neutral party with regard to laws and regulations.
April 3, 2017 - OBIS PREPCOM-3 BBNJ
OBIS can be the data sharing platform and clearing house mechanism dealing with the issues of traceability, provenance and application of data in ABNJ. A federated, interoperable system for cruise information with unique persistent identifiers would benefit BBNJ and would allow the integration of cruise information with the actual sample data in OBIS. Using OBIS in a legal context will require (1) increased scrutiny of data through flagging data as appropriate or inappropriate for specific uses in consultation with legal experts and (2) the communication of uncertainty in ways consumable by non-scientist users.
If more resources can be made available, OBIS is ready to support all Member States in the collection, management, publication and analysis of marine biodiversity data. This year, six OBIS training courses will take place in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Senegal, Malaysia, and Belgium as part of the IOC OceanTeacher Global Academy. However, we need to further scale up capacity building efforts to expand the network and maximize the contribution and application of marine biodiversity data.With OBIS, BBNJ can build on an existing network of more than 600 institutions worldwide that provide data to the central OBIS office through a network of 27 national or regional OBIS nodes. It is crucial that Member States actively support their national OBIS nodes to ensure they can provide the necessary data. Also, the central OBIS office of IOC will need to be further resourced so it can provide the technical support, training, and information required for BBNJ.More information on BBNJ PrepCom-3 can be found at: http://www.un.org/depts/los/biodiversity/prepcom.htm.

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