of

SAINT LUCIA

_{Printed Materials & Reports   Biodiversity Papers   Meetings   Public Outreach   CITES Article}

Minutes of Caribbean Focal Points Meeting
^{4th IABIN Council Meeting
8th, April 6th - 8th, 2005}

During the 4^th IABIN Council Meeting, Focal Points from the Greater Caribbean Region (see list below) met with Gladys Cotter (IABIN Council Chair), Iván Valdespino (IABIN Secretariat Director), Richard Huber (OAS), Douglas J. Graham (World Bank), and others to discuss how to advance the involvement of Caribbean countries in IABIN and better identify specific gaps and needs related to biodiversity informatics. It was concluded that a regional workshop would be helpful to address those issues.

Caribbean Workshop Preparation – Initial Steps
As an initial step to aid in the identification process of priority issues for the workshop, Focal Points will review and update the country sections in the sub-regional reports completed during the IABIN project preparation phase (PDF-B) (see links below). All agreed that a period of 3 months would be an adequate amount of time to complete the updates. Country updates are to be sent by July 15^th, 2005 to Yabanex Batista (ybatista@usgs.gov), who will compile them.

The workshop should be carried out with participants of various sectors (Government, academic, NGOs and others) in the Greater Caribbean to discuss specific issues related to biodiversity information sharing and infrastructure development for islands and neighboring countries in the Caribbean, within the context of IABIN.

Once updates are received, priority areas for the workshop, venue and time would be identified. As IABIN funds are limited, alternative funding sources for this workshop would also need to be identified.

Dionne Newell, Jamaica IABIN Focal Point (zoology.nhd@cwjamaica.com), was selected as lead by the Caribbean countries to serve as the main contact person between the Caribbean countries and the IABIN Secretariat and IABIN Executive Committee (IEC) during this process.

Sub-Regional Reports:
Sub-Region 6 Final Report (Belize)
http://www.iabin.net/binary_docs/tors/sub-regional/subregion6_phase2_final_esp.pdf http://www.iabin.net/binary_docs/tors/sub-regional/Subregfin6_esp.pdf

Sub-Region 4 Final Report – (Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago)
http://www.iabin.net/binary_docs/tors/sub-regional/subregfin4_eng.pdf

Sub-Region 5 Final Report – (All other Caribbean countries)
http://www.iabin.net/binary_docs/tors/sub-regional/subregfin5_eng.pdf

Greater Caribbean Countries representatives present:
Deon Stewart, Bahamas
Shontelle Wellington, Barbados
Ivis Chan, Belize
Dimitri Norris, Haiti
Dionne Newell, Jamaica
Martin Satney, St. Lucia
Risha Alleyne, Trinidad & Tobago

Greater Caribbean Countries not present:
Antigua and Barbuda;   Dominica;   Dominican Republic; Grenada;   Guyana;   Saint Kitts and Nevis;  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines;  Suriname

Other Participants present at the Meeting:
Gladys Cotter, IABIN Council Chair
Ivan Valdespino, IABIN Secretariat Director
Richard Huber, Organization of American Sates
Douglas J. Graham, World Bank
Andrea Grosse, USGS – Biological Informatics Office
Bonnie Carroll, International Bioinformatics Foundation
Yabanex Batista, USGS – Biological Informatics Office