Summary Report
APBON 7th Web Seminar

1. Date: 27th May, 2021
Time: 15:00-17:00 in Japanese Standard Time
(13:00-15:00 in Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam), (11:45-13:45 in Nepal)(14:00-16:00 in Malaysia, Philippines, China), (5/26 20:00-22:00 in Hawaii)
2. Location, Participants
・Webex Meeting Room・39 participants (35 participants and 4 from secretariat) from 9 Nationalities
・MC: Dr. Yongyut (Kasetsart University)
3. Program:Opening and Announcement:
Secretariat of APBON (Ms. Neagari: Biodiversity Center of Japan)
・Greetings from Ms. Neagari from APBON Secretariat・Welcomed all of the participants to join this 7th APBON web seminar
・The agenda and rules of the meeting were proposed
・Introduced today’s MC
Presentation1:
Dr. Yuichi Kano (Kyushu University) andDr. Yayoi Takeuchi (National Institute for Environmental Studies)“Development of the graphical user-friendly database on plant diversity of Monsoon
Asia “floraZia” ”
Summary of presentation
Referring to ‘ffish.asiaa’ database on freshwater species diversity in Monsoon Asia, Dr.
Kano and Dr. Takeuchi introduced their ongoing plant database “FloraZia.com,” which
is designed a similar structure of “ffish.aisa”. This database intends to publish a lot of“unpublished” data of flora in Monsoon Asia, which was surveyed by APBON members.
Initially 307 test data had been input. The floraZia contains occurrence data, field photos,specimen photos, 3D models, scientific papers, and DNA sequencing and linked to theexisted database such as GBIF, DDBJ,. Since the system development of “floraZia” would
have almost been completed, they introduced the Future plan which tried to include
Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and a part of Sarawak (Ulu Anap). The presenter also
demonstrated the actual site with some utility introduced.
Dr. Takeuchi added to mention that APBON had a lot of field data set, so digitalization
was one of the top priority issues in many countries and in APBON activities. It would
be providing very good opportunities to open any data for further collaboration based onAPBON.
Q&A Session
Q: Are there any keys provided for each family/genus/species?
A: There’re no keys provided, but maybe we can do that, or anyone familiar with can dothat.
Q: Is it possible that we can curate the data by using the estimation? For example, if I
want to check one province in Thailand, is it possible?
A: We could talk about this issue later. It’ll be very great that you could provide yourdata set.
Q: Does the database use the Darwin core format?
A: For accurately, this is not the same as the Darwin core format, but we changed
through the Darwin core format.
Q: If any member country would like to join this development, so what kind of data
should be required?
A: Any kind of data is OK, so Dr. Yahara’s team usually does the transect survey in one
area and their method is very comprehensive to survey the whole community in planttransects. So they take occurrence data and sometimes take the size of plants. And theyalso take pictures and do some sequencing. If you only have partial data set, it should beok.
Presentaton2:
Dr. Asanee Kawtrakul (Kasetsart University)“TH-BIF: Moving Forward to an Open Platform for Collecting Biodiversity Data forOpen Innovation”

Summary of presentation
Dr. Kawtrakul briefly introduced TH-BIF development in 2018. The concept of TH-BIF
is to provide a platform for data sharing and service innovation by designing a system toimprove the data storage of plants, animals, microorganisms, binomial nomenclature,invasive species, the status of threatened species in Thailand, etc. It includes interaction
with the gateway to link with other information Nodes such as research and innovation
Node, gene banks Node, and spatial data Node. It also includes the link with theagriculture research, biodiversity research, and national research center of Thailand.
The presenter also introduced the network of TH-BIF expanding to GBIF Red List then
now moving forward to open their platform and open the data based on the conscientiousof stakeholder. As a future of TH-BIF, she introduced further development of structureand system such as networking with traditional medicines and information sharing
platform.
Q&A Session
Q: Is there any data sharing policy especially genetic data and for organisms listed inCITES?
A: Yes. This is an ongoing process with the ONEP (Office of Natural Resources
Environmental Policy and Planning) organization. They already have a committee totake care of the data governance including data sharing policy.
Q: Congratulations Prof. Asanee and highly appreciate that TH-BIF has ensured verticaland horizontal interoperability and has ensured data quality. Is there a link orrelationship between TH-BIF and Thailand's Biodiversity Clearing House Mechanism?
A: I think it’s welcomed by ONEP. Because the data validation is very important and also
it's the part of hard work, which we need more specialists to contribute to clean data.
Q: As for the data collection strategy, not only collecting existed data, do you also newlycollect the data by field survey?
A: Based on the data governance committee, it is on the procedure to select which partof data since we have many data sets. So based on the data owner, they will inform us
soon which data will be open for several levels of accessibility. So I think it's in the process
to have consensus on open data.
Q: Does the API platform open to the public very soon?
A: We use API from IUCN and GBIF, and for API, we published and announced to 21

organizations who are TH-BIF members. And it becomes open more and more if there’smore collaborative network. I think this will be handled by the ONEP.
Q: Thailand has been collected species data for almost 100 years. Since the last threeyears of this project development, our colleagues and experts are considering somefactors that are driving suspect and the factor becomes the barrier of this project. Could
you share the experience of the success story and your view of expectation?
A: From the first year, it is very hard work to communicate and promote this platform toopen the mindset for data sharing. So first, we tried to promote the TH-BIF platform
could be login to everyone. Since some data is the national level, at least the country
needs to know how many species in Thailand that we have. Since the office of natural
resource and environmental policy and planning’s main goal is conservation, restorationand they also work with BEDO (Biodiversity-based Economy Development Office), which
is one of the organization. They focus on how to utilize biodiversity for the economy.
In the second year, we discussed a lot about data security and trustworthy platform. For
data security, the development is, this is the country level so it might be several level
accessibilities. So we should clarify which one we would like to keep for not open access.
And they have several parts that we would like to open to set the priority of research tosupport policy and planning, especially for conservation and restoration. So based on thisidea, we provide tools and go together which I think is the main factor to gain success toshare the data. Meanwhile, the hard part of this work is much knowledge still
keep in the paper, so how to input those data is a lot of work. Hope I answered yourquestion.
Q: You talked about how biodiversity database contributes to bioeconomy, and the policyin Thailand. And the examples that data have been used for the strategies, so if not what
are the strategies in your mind.
A: First of all, TH-BIF is not only collecting the biodiversity data, we also try to link withwisdom and local knowledge how to utilize those data and have a collaboration with thecommunity level to let them know the value of every biodiversity information. Since wehave data biodiversity development office, they have many celebrations with theresearcher to develop the value.
So if you link this kind of knowledge, and let them know the market so this is the way
this project works, not only to utilize data for make income to the community but also

they need to know to aware of conservation. And many universities also participate to
do research on restoration. So restoration, conservation, and utilization also go together.
I think this is part of knowing how to integrate this to provide managed services to thecommunity to utilize their own asset. So we propose them to join so that’s why we had todevelop crowdsourcing data by the community people and let them know the value of theasset and then link the knowledge how to make value from that asset. So this is the idea
and plan.
Q: Do you elaborate on the domain of the computer or the system of the computer for thisdatabase?
A: Yes. We need to work together between the data owner, data user, and academy toimprove the technology and to proceed and utilize those data, either for strategicplanning for conservation, restoration, and data utilization for the community economy.
I think it's a non-stop project. Data will increase gradually if the organization could
promote to the partner and user how the value can put on to the data. So we set some
important work that is magnetizing biodiversity data.
APBON discussion on the Management Committee and future activities (Dr. Muraoka)(1) Survey results on APBON web seminar-The survey results of 2020 APBON web seminar was shared.

-Some very useful comments from participants were shared, which are good points,
bad points and other opinions.

-Some topics and ideas about future APBON Webinar were shared.

(2) Management Committee-The issue of reactivating this management committee function to facilitate theactivities of APBON was discussed, and rules of procedure of the management
committee (the draft terms of reference) were drafted.
-Some positive responses about the draft terms of references from committee
members were shared as below.
- Everyone’s idea and comment about these terms of reference is very much welcome
in online and offline both ways.

(3) Consultation from Mr. Mangal- The issue that what is happening right now during the pandemic duration inBardia National Park, western Nepal was shared by Mr. Mangal.
- The problem of creating an isolation center in this Bardia National Park waspointed out, which should be known and discussed.
- Mr. Mangal also emphasized that this issue not only happened in Nepal but also
in other country like Bangladesh. He stated this kind of issue should be discussed
in further APBON webinars or activities.
(4) Sheila’s speech
In the last parts of this web seminar, Dr. Sheila gave her speech since she is goingto retire from ACB.
Photo session: