Global Frameworks
OBIS ensures marine biodiversity is represented in global biodiversity platforms, building strong alliances for conservation. By contributing standardised, internationally comparable occurrence data to key international processes and by actively partnering with global biodiversity platforms, OBIS connects the science of marine biodiversity to the policy frameworks that govern it.
Supports: GBIF–OBIS joint strategy, IOC/UNESCO, CBD, IPBES, SDG 17
Analysis of OBIS data maps distinct biogeographic realms in the world ocean — providing the global biodiversity baseline essential for international reporting frameworks.
Providing standardised marine biodiversity data for national CBD reporting
Implemented
OBIS data has been used by countries preparing their national reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity, providing standardised, internationally comparable occurrence records that underpin status assessments and progress evaluations against the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Many countries lack the national marine survey capacity to produce comprehensive, internationally comparable biodiversity status assessments for CBD reporting obligations.
Impact: Standardised occurrence data enabling more rigorous and comparable national CBD reports, strengthening marine biodiversity representation within the global policy framework.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, national node datasets, long-term occurrence records
Aligning global biodiversity data infrastructures to eliminate duplication and gaps
Ongoing
OBIS and GBIF have developed a joint strategy to align their data infrastructures, eliminate duplication, and ensure comprehensive, consistent marine biodiversity representation within the global open-access biodiversity data landscape — a model for large-scale interoperability between international data platforms.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Parallel biodiversity data infrastructures create duplication, inconsistency, and coverage gaps that undermine the reliability of global biodiversity assessments used by IPBES, CBD, and other frameworks.
Impact: A coherent, interoperable global biodiversity data commons with comprehensive marine coverage, serving as a model for international platform collaboration.
OBIS inputs: OBIS occurrence records, Darwin Core standards, OBIS–GBIF data sharing agreements
Integrating OBIS data into broader global biodiversity platforms
Ongoing
The TAI4OBIS initiative demonstrates how OBIS data infrastructure can be extended and integrated with complementary systems to strengthen the marine biodiversity data commons, building the partnerships and technical bridges needed to make OBIS data accessible and actionable within broader global biodiversity platforms.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Marine biodiversity data remains siloed from complementary global platforms, limiting its discoverability and use in policy processes that draw on multiple data sources.
Impact: Stronger technical bridges between OBIS and global biodiversity platforms, increasing the reach and policy uptake of marine biodiversity data.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, occurrence datasets, data interoperability standards
Strengthening the marine biodiversity evidence base for IPBES science-policy assessments
Potential use case
OBIS data can be more systematically integrated into future IPBES global and regional assessments, providing the marine biodiversity empirical foundation for science-policy synthesis reports that inform intergovernmental decision-making on biodiversity loss, ecosystem services, and the effectiveness of conservation responses.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Marine ecosystems are systematically underrepresented in IPBES assessments relative to terrestrial ecosystems, partly due to the difficulty of accessing and harmonising ocean biodiversity data at assessment scales.
Impact: A stronger marine biodiversity evidence base in IPBES assessments, ensuring ocean ecosystems receive commensurate attention in global science-policy processes.
OBIS inputs: Global occurrence datasets, long-term time-series records, OBIS API
