About the World Flora Online project

INBio is a non-profit organization of the civil society. It was established in 1989 to support the efforts on generating knowledge of the biological diversity of the country and promote its sustainable use. It operates in close collaboration with diverse government agencies, universities, enterprises and other public and private institutions in and out of the country. Its mission is to promote a greater awareness of the value of biodiversity and thereby achieve its conservation and improve the quality of life of the human beings.

For the past 30 years, the core process of the institution consists in capturing, processing and transferring the information and knowledge about the biodiversity of the country to society. This core process has been implemented through the following action areas, which are strongly interrelated:

Bioliteracy: Share information and knowledge about biodiversity with different audiences: (decision-makers, general public, tourists, teachers, students, etc) seeking to achieve a greater awareness about the value of biodiversity and consequently promoting behavioral changes that will benefit its conservation.

Inventory and Monitoring: Generates and captures information about the diversity of the species and ecosystems of the country. This applies to the different areas of the scientific responsibilities such as:

systematic, ecology, biogeography, biodiversity informatics, and geographic information systems. At the same time, it establishes the baseline and develops monitoring programs for the different elements of biodiversity.

Biodiversity Informatics: Develops and applies biodiversity informatics tools to support the processes of information capturing, generation, management, analysis and dissemination. A more detailed description is presented in section 3 of this document.

Conservation: Integrates the information generated and managed by INBio to the decision-making processes for protection uses and the sustainable use of biodiversity, not only for the public, but also for the private sector. This leads to the establishment and management of extensive networking activities with the conservation sector, as well as to the processing of the information, adding value to promote responsible decision-making.

Bioprospecting: Searches for new profitable and sustainable uses from genetic and biochemical biodiversity resources through scientific research that is developed in cooperation with local and international private, academic and corporate partners.

Economical Value: Measures the biodiversity contribution to the economical and social development of the country through offered goods and services. Involves the establishment of a network of collaborators for the development of research in the area of ecological economy, and also the design of accounting mechanisms and the charge and payment of the environmental services.