The EU BON workshop "Biodiversity research for and by citizens in Eastern Europe: tools, information services and public engagement" was organized to present the EU BON citizen science gateway, share accomplishments of the project, promote products, raise and discuss challenges of citizen science and facilitate networking between countries, especially eastern and central European countries.

There were 33 participants from Baltic countries and Finland and EU BON partners from Norway, Spain, Israel and Brussels. First day was showcasing the citizen science initiatives in Estonia, following best practice examples from EU BON consortium. During the second day the participants got a chance to learn the tools and methods for citizen science data management by ECSA and EU BON. This was followed by world cafe style discussion about the needs of citizen science initiatives and Pan-European citizen science gateway. One of the important conclusions for Baltic countries is that there is a need for stronger collaboration and supportive infrastructure to make citizen science more effective and also deliver accessible data to research community.

Some workshop participants also took part of Tartu Mini-BioBlitz on 29th June, first BioBlitz in Estonia. BioBlitz participants observed 239 species of animals, plants and fungi .

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Workshop agenda

Read a first hand report form the workshop in the two great blog posts by Egle Marija Ramanauskaite (a workshop participant from Lithuania):

http://seplute.tumblr.com/post/146841955105/citsci-overtakes-the-baltics-citizen-science

http://seplute.tumblr.com/post/146844410470/citizen-science-workshop-in-tartu-recap-of-day-2

Taking place from 14 to 16 March 2017, the Final EU BON Meeting served as a platform to present key outputs from the FP7 EU-funded project EU BON " Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network" which aims to advance biodiversity knowledge by building a European gateway for biodiversity information and by integrating and harmonising a wide range of biodiversity data.

Hosted by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels and at the stunning backdrop of Botanic Garden in Meise, EU BON partners met with stakeholders from research, European policy and citizen science to learn about the project's results and outputs and to discuss the future of a European Biodiversity Observation Network.

Credit: Donat Agosti

EU BON represents a joint effort of 31 partners from 15 European countries, Israel, the Philippines, Brazil and more than 30 associated partners. The project worked on the establishment and adoption of new data standards, the development of tools, the integration of advanced techniques for data analysis and the development of new approaches and strategies for future biodiversity monitoring and assessment.

Group Photo; Credit: D. Schmeller

At the Final Meeting participants had the opportunity to learn about and test products and services developed by project members during the period 2012-2017. These include a range of tools for data analysis, such as GeoCAT -- a tool that performs rapid geospatial analysis to ease the process of Red Listing taxa and AquaMaps -- a toolkit that models the distribution and makes predictions of where aquatic species occur naturally. Another group of tools -- the GBIF Integrated Toolkit and ARPHA-BioDiv facilitates the process of data sharing, integration and publishing.

Among the services presented, worthy of special mention is the EU BON Unified Taxonomic Information Service (UTIS) that allows the running of a federated search on multiple European taxonomic checklists by scientific name or vernacular name strings. These include the Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (EU-Nomen), the European Nature Information System (EUNIS), the Catalogue of Life, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), the GBIF Checklist Bank and the Plazi Treatment Bank.

All these web applications are bound together under the umbrella of the EU BON European Biodiversity Portal, with highly relevant contributions to the aims of the Group on Earth Observation's Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). Besides applied tools and software, the portal also serves as an online library for manuals, guidelines, factsheets, case studies, policy recommendations and other documents.

Learn more about these tools in our Final Brochure.

For live updates, follow EU BON on Twitter, or like us on Facebook. See the live Tweet feed from the meeting at #eubongm.

In 2013, Doñana Biological Reserve will host the first meeting of WP5 EU BON testing and validation of concepts, tools, and services, focusing on the organization and planning of the forthcoming WP5 tasks. The meeting will take place in Palacio de Doñana, Huelva, Spain, from 2 to 4 April 2013.
The aim of the meeting is to bring together the experts in charge of the implementation of the WP5 tasks with the people responsible for the data architecture (WP2), the tools developers (WP3, 4) and the policy and dialogue responsible partners (WP6, 7, 8). The meeting aims at providing a precise definition of the responsibilities of the partners involved and discussing the organization of the work process.

On the 1st of April, between 9:30 and 16:30, the BiodiversityKnowledge project organises a conference where outcomes will be presented and widely discussed with policy makers, science and other stakeholders at the European parliament in Brussels. As final result, BiodiversityKnowledge will present a stakeholder’s document outlining a recommended design on how such a Network of Knowledge could operate and produce added value.

EU BON will be also presented at the confernce as one of the knowledge providers of the Network of Knowledge.

To counteract biodiversity loss, efforts have considerably increased over the past years to strengthen the science-policy-society interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. There is indeed an active landscape of projects, institutions, organisations and individuals in Europe involved in this interface, all aiming to improve the knowledge flow so that decisions at different policy levels (from European, to national and local levels) are based on the best available knowledge.

With the 7th Environmental Action Programme and the start of Horizon2020 and its focus on innovative solutions for society, the need for more concerted activities in this context become even more important.

In this context, BiodiversityKnowledge (FP7 KNEU), an EU-funded coordination action has been set up to help to map, mobilise and organise this landscape focusing on the knowledge holders’ community. For this the project has been developing and testing a prototype Network of Knowledge since 2011 with more than 300 active participations of representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystems services knowledge community. Stakeholders involved ranged from practitioners and researchers to policy-makers.

Please find the conference agenda attached below.

The conference covers scenarios and modelling applications in marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems, across all relevant disciplines of natural and social sciences. It is open to scientists and experts working in the field, policy makers and practioners. The conference focuses on: (i) Exploring recent advances in modelling human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, (ii) Addressing the use of scenarios and models for decision support, (iii) Mobilising observations of biodiversity and ecosystem services for model development and testing, (iv) Capacity building for developing scenarios and models and for their use in decision making, (v) Horizon scanning and addressing gaps in knowledge.

More information available on the conference website.

The European Ecosystem Services 2016 conference will take place from 19 to 23 September 2016 in Antwerp, Belgium. The theme 'Helping nature to help us' focuses on the important role that healthy ecosystems play in supporting human well-being and the protection of nature.

This conference will be the biggest European event in 2016 that links science, policy and practice on ecosystem services and natural capital. It will have a strong focus on practice and implementation.

The conference programme offers an attractive mix of:

• keynote presentations from policy, practice and science;
• a networking day where businesses, practitioners, policymakers and researchers meet and showcase their work;
• interactive sessions to demonstrate working examples of ecosystem services and natural capital;
• field excursions to see ecosystem services in action; and
• scientific sessions.

Key dates:

Registration opens on 2 May 2016.

Call for abstracts - 1 Apr - 15 May 2016.

To register and find out more about teh event, please visit the official website.

KT here: A memorial service for David was held on May 18, 2024. Although many friends and family members traveled to be present, the service was also streamed live for those who could not. For those who were unable to do either, a recording of the service has been posted on Vimeo. The link is […]

Dave Rank, a high ranking diplomat, resigned over Trump’s climate change policy.

Also: a former sheriff worries that new legislation in California to protect unauthorised immigrants will make it harder for police officers to do their jobs; a member of India’s lowest caste moves to New York and becomes a train conductor; a journalist travels around the world to see how people pay taxes; Harry Truman’s grandson impersonates him in a play; plus we meet some four legged civil servants: bomb sniffing dogs.

(Image: Dave Rank is the former head of the US embassy in Beijing. Credit: Ashley Ahearn/Terrestrial. http://kuow.org/programs/terrestrial )

To help you navigate the messy world of streaming services availability, Next Episode has a few new features: All lists (search, browse, top/discovery charts, watchlist, track episodes) now also show streaming availability You can now filter by streaming services availability In addition, you can add the streaming services you use to My Services and filter through that as wellThis is not just for US - your country should've been automatically detected, but if not - you can easily switch it here. Basically, it should now be easier than ever to find out where your stuff is streaming and find new great shows on the streaming services you use. Our movies section will get the same treatment soon. Let me know your thoughts and as always - if you appreciate my efforts here - consider getting Premium. Thank you!

I mentioned movies will get the streaming services availability - and it's now done. Here's what's new:streaming services availability was added in all Movies lists (my movies, browse, hot, trending, search)you can now filter these lists by streaming services or "my streaming services" availabilityAlong with these specific updates regarding the Movies section, there are a few general improvements as well:when filtered by a streaming service, what you filter by is first and highlighted - the rest is grayed outmany new countries are now supported so if yours wasn't there before - check again - it most likely is nowPlease let me know how these work for you and if something looks weird on your device/browser. Next - I plan to focus on improving how My Movies looks and works (both on desktop and mobile)

Novo Building Products is pleased to announce the opening of a new Empire Moulding and Millwork distribution facility in Amherst, New Hampshire. Strategically located 60 miles north of Boston, the new 217,000-square-foot facility services 750 independent lumberyards, specialty millwork shops, stair manufacturers, door fabricators, ProDealers and home centers across New England.

I know that it has been a while since I was a small remodeling contractor, but has the state of the art really fallen this far?

The defunct charity's former digital director wants to set up its digital volunteer recruitment network as a social enterprise

Charities need stability and clarity from next week’s announcement – more ambitious interventions can wait

The NCS Trust, the charity set up to operate the scheme, will also be wound down, MPs are told

The Brainy Insights estimates that the $5.1 billion drywall repair services market will reach $10.22 billion by 2033. Rapid urbanization and strategic initiatives by the private players in the global market may fuel the growth of the drywall repair services market.

Oak City Remodeling in Raleigh, North Carolina, elevates the home renovation experience with comprehensive services.

CISCA has a new, free publication for members.

Steve Bradley joined the charity as a cadet aged 11 and continued to serve for the next five decades, meeting the woman who would become his wife along the way

Brian Cole says he was so grateful to the RNLI for helping him that he began fundraising and giving talks about it

About 200 companies have already been given access to the scheme

Washington – The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s updated hours-of-service regulations would prevent an estimated 1,400 crashes, 560 injuries and 19 fatalities each year, according to agency Administrator Anne S. Ferro.

Atlanta – Workers in the accommodation and food service industries have the highest prevalence of cigarette smoking, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Baton Rouge, LA – Service industry workers in Louisiana report a higher prevalence of poor health, chronic health conditions, and risk factors such as smoking and binge drinking than all other workers in the state, according to an analysis conducted by the state’s Occupational Health and Injury Surveillance Program.

Chantilly, VA — The International Association of Fire Chiefs and eight other national fire service organizations are urging drivers to exercise extra caution when approaching emergency vehicles and respect move over laws.

Greenbelt, MD — An unannounced inspection blitz of commercial motor vehicles resulted in 12.6% of those checked being placed out of service for brake-related violations, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance recently announced.

Washington – April is National Workplace Violence Prevention Month, and OSHA hopes to raise awareness by releasing updated guidance for health care and social service workers.

Washington — A new fact sheet from OSHA seeks to help shipyard employers evaluate their fire and rescue services.

The RS360 workplace safety portfolio has been expanded with a new Remote Safeguarding Assessment Service designed for customers with less complex machine safeguarding requirements that need to be evaluated for CFR OSHA 1910, ANSI B11 series standards and NFPA 79/70E compliance.

Users of the iNet Now platform can enhance it by using real-time response center monitoring for gas exposures and panic or man-down alarms with a 24/7 monitoring service.

Alarm.com, Vienna, Va., a provider of interactive security and connected home services, announced its new Energy Monitoring solution that provides consumers with a view of their whole home and individual device energy usage, fully integrated through the Alarm.com website and mobile apps with their security, video and home automation services.

Alarm.com, Vienna, Va., a provider of interactive security and connected home services, announced key enhancements to its Geo-Services offering, including location-based thermostat automation and video recording options.

East Lansing, MI – Do you find shopping therapeutic after a tense day at work? It may be rooted to your occupation. Service workers who are verbally abused by customers are more likely to indulge in stress-related shopping sprees, according to a recent study from Michigan State University.

Washington — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released guidance intended to help employers in the retail and service industries protect workers from violence that may occur when they ask customers or co-workers to comply with store policies aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Tampa, FL — COVID-19 mortality rates among adults with lower levels of education who worked in the labor, service and retail industries were nearly five times higher than other groups in 2020, results of a new study by the University of South Florida show.

For a long time in the physical security industry, there were two camps: the alarm company — based on RMR, and the integrator — based on large onsite systems.

This new service includes tunneling and full network management for cameras, NVRs, alarm panels and other devices with built-in cyber security site isolation and automated AI VPN credentialing.

Kansas-based Safety Plus First Aid & Safety helps businesses protect their employees and customers with first-aid kits, AEDs, CPR kits and other safety equipment needed in case of a workplace injury or emergency.

Safety Systems was founded almost 60 years ago by Dale Decker, who built the company on a foundation of quality, service and commitment to the local community.