New atlas brings data on Brazil’s biodiversity

Brazil known as home to the world’s biggest biodiversity, but a portion of its fauna and flora is still unknown. To contribute to the knowledge about the country’s ecosystems, the Atlas of the Brazilian Biodiversity Information System (SiBBr) was launched in Brasília on Tuesday (Aug 27).

The initiative, brought about by the Brazilian government in collaboration with other institutions, like United Nations (UN) Environment Program, includes catalogs from museums, botanical gardens (like Rio de Janeiro’s) and research projects across Brazil, in addition to data from other countries.

The program encompasses 97 institutions, 191 collections, and 361 data packs. Altogether, over 160 thousand species were gathered in the system. Brazil describes one animal species and two plant species every day. This content is available on the program’s website.

UN Women representative Denise Hamú, attending the Atlas’s launch ceremony, noted the importance of having this data, originally scattered, integrated. Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil

Biodiversity

More data should be included, as Brazil has thus far registered 200 thousand species in the country, and 1.8 million species are believed to be make up Brazil’s biodiversity, as per official estimates.

UN Women representative Denise Hamú, attending the Atlas’s launch ceremony, noted the importance of having this data, originally scattered, integrated. She said it was an arduous task to engage scientists from different fields, but the project was a remarkable achievement as it benefits scientists, public managers, and the public at large.

Marcelo Morales, secretary at the Science Ministry, pointed out that Brazil is familiar with only 11 percent of its biodiversity. This knowledge, he argued, can both benefit an economy focused on these resources and help in preservation.

“We have species we don’t know yet and may help produce medicine to cure diseases. We can also generate income from economic activities like cosmetics and the discovery of new food,” he remarked.

Data assessment

According to Professor Braulio de Souza Dias, form the Institute of Biological Science of the University of Brasília (UnB), science plays a key role in decision making, but the integration and documentation of ecosystems must be stepped up. Such efforts requires open access to scientific collections. He recommended that SiBBr have a more robust institutional structure, as dictated by the law.

Dias also note that it is now time to collect and analyze big data also in biodiversity. “We have modeling for the weather, but not for biodiversity. The challenge is dealing with different types of data for different uses aimed at good governance.”