EEA celebrates international biodiversity day

The theme of this year's International Biological Diversity Day promoted by The United Nations was "Biodiversity: Life Insurance for a Changing World".

To celebrate this occasion, the Agency teamed up with the Danish Zoological Museum, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Danish Biodiversity Information Facility in an open-day with guided tours at the Museum. The European Environment Agency introduced visitors to the EEA website and made available material on biodiversity with reports, videos and information - all available on the EEA website.

On the occasion of International Biological Diversity Day, the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity launched a much improved database called EUNIS, European Nature Information System. This database focuses on key biodiversity elements such as species, habitat types, etc and will be improved further during this year with major features such as spatial tools and enhanced data sets.

These on-line information systems will help to assess and understand biodiversity in a wider context. The EUNIS database development was initiated by the Agency in 1997, and the data was made available on the web within European Community clearing House Mechanism process in 2002.

Events were arranged worldwide to celebrate this day and improve awareness of biodiversity and its relevance to human well-being. A synthesis report of the biodiversity part of the UN-driven Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was launched in Montreal, London, Cambridge and Beijing as part of these celebrations.

Relevant links:

http://www.biodiv.org/default.shtml
http://www.nathimus.ku.dk
http://www.gbif.org
http://biodiversity.eionet.eu.int/
http://biodiversity.eionet.eu.intwill