The Taiwan Encyclopedia of Life (TaiEOL) was inaugurated by the ROC Council of Agriculture Nov. 12 in Taipei City, highlighting efforts to enhance the global visibility of Taiwan’s biodiversity and promote bilateral information and technological exchanges.
Produced by Taipei-based Academia Sinica under the auspices of the COA’s Forestry Bureau, TaiEOL contains information on 13,000 species and involved more than 100 scholars and experts from local educational and research institutions.
“The project is Taiwan’s response to the 2007 Encyclopedia of Life initiative, which calls for a free, online collaborative encyclopedia to document all 1.8 million living species known to science,” a bureau official said
As part of Taiwan’s commitment to the initiative, Academia Sinica signed an agreement on behalf of the council with EOL last year, making the country the project’s 16th global partner, the official added.
A portal to all online information available from the public and private sectors, the database provides free and easy access to the public and researchers looking for information, including photographs and video clips, on a given species.
“It will also enable readers from around the world to appreciate Taiwan’s biodiversity and serve as a platform that fosters communication and research collaboration among institutions from home and abroad,” the official said.
The bureau is continuing working with researchers at Academia Sinica to expand the scope of the database to cover all 56,000 species in Taiwan, the official said. (SFC-JSM)
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