COORDINATING COMMITTEE | contacts
Chair Dr Tsetseg Baljinova, Mongolia;
Awaiting nomination, People's
Republic of China;
Dr Ri Su Yong, Democratic People's Republic of Korea;
Dr Kyounghee Oh, Republic of Korea.
Status
The formulation workshop of EASIANET was hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing in July 2001. The LOOP was formally established in 2002 after endorsement by the governments of all five member countries.
Member countries 5: Japan, Mongolia, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, People's Republic of
China, Republic of Korea.
Context
The East Asian subregion has abundant natural resources and a wealth of biodiversity. During the last two decades, some parts of the subregion have experienced massive economic development activities aimed at raising standards of living and there is concern that these rapid changes have negatively affected biodiversity and hence the medium and longer term sustainability of such development programmes. The establishment of a national and subregional network (BioNET-LOOP) supported by international cooperation is an effective means to reinforce capacities for assessment, study and systematic observation and evaluation of biodiversity.
Goals and Priorities
- Integrate taxonomy with other sectors;
taxonomists need to become better informed on global initiatives
(CBD, IPPC, GBIF, GISP), and national development and biodiversity
management programmes need to communicate their needs for
taxonomic tools and services more effectively to taxonomic
institutions.
- Develop human capacity and enhance
scientific collaboration.
- Develop taxonomic infrastructure and
reference materials.
- Improve information management and
electronic databases.
- Facilitate sustained long term funding
for taxonomy.
Current activities
- Academic training of students from the
Asian-Pacific Region in taxonomy of microorganisms.
- Digitization of fungal specimens and
databasing of fungal collections.
- Development of a project to be submitted
to GEF on microorganismal biodiversity in agricultural systems.
- Collaborative work with strategic and
technical partners, e.g. Landcare research (NZAid project on plant
quarantine in the Mekong Delta region), GBIF, PBIF.
Recent achievements
- Organisation of workshops and seminars on
"Fungal Taxonomy", "The Importance of Taxonomy to Plant
Quarantine", and "Global Warming in the Region and its Affect on
Biodiversity".
- Establishment of a specific palm fungi
database with digitized specimens.
- Installation of a server at the Univesity
of Hong Kong (HKU) for future databasing (funded by HKU and GBIF).
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