Sharing Biodiversity Records in Fiji

Kelly Brown, the Curator of Marine Collection at the University of the South Pacific, talks about the collaboration work with the museum and the importance of record sharing through data aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Records of species occurrences from Pacific Island countries are often limited, and access to existing records by Pacific peoples is even more challenging. Museums, natural history collections, universities, and various research institutions hold important biodiversity information that can benefit researchers, students, government officials, and hobbyists. In recent years, organisations known as biodiversity data aggregators have developed online platforms to make this data more accessible. One such aggregator is the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, commonly referred to as GBIF. GBIF has an open access policy, requiring users to acknowledge the source of the data they use.

In 2021, the Auckland War Memorial Museum and The University of the South Pacific (USP) received a grant through GBIF’s Biodiversity for Informational Development programme to mobilise records of Fijian plants and animals from preserved specimens, field notes, and reports, making them available through GBIF. The USP hosts the South Pacific Regional Herbarium and the USP Marine Collection, which contain invaluable species records from Fiji and the South Pacific region, some dating back to 1910. Teams from the Auckland Museum and the USP collaborated to format the specimen data according to GBIF requirements and internationally recognised standards. Two workshops were held, both online and in person, for the project team and Fijian government stakeholders to ensure training and awareness, along with exchange visits between both teams to the Auckland Museum and USP.

Ose ni waitui (Navakavu dialect, Fiji), Scribbled pipefish (English), *Corythoichthys intestinalis*
© Photo: Josy Lai. CC-BY-NC

The project's outputs, organised into nine datasets, are available on the GBIF site. While it is crucial to make these biodiversity records freely accessible, it is also important to consider how this data can be useful for potential users, particularly those from the Pacific region. One valuable aspect of the data is the local or indigenous names of plants and animals from various communities. Having this information online benefits local researchers who may struggle to find references or have limited access to isolated island communities. However, care and respect must be taken not to record sacred names or any information that the communities prefer to keep private.

One example of a dataset from the project that includes indigenous names is "Ilava ni Navakavu: A Checklist of Scientific and Local Names of the Finfishes of the Vanua Navakavu, Fiji" - access from here. The dataset includes 790 indigenous names, together with scientific names. These records were made available on GBIF with permission from the authors who compiled a report on fish names in the local dialect of the community. This is a remarkable resource for the Pacific peoples, for anyone who has access to the internet, not limited to people who have access to academic journals, due to the open access policy of GBIF.

Votonimoli (Navakavu dialect, Fiji), Needlescaled Queenfish (English), *Scomberoides tol*
© Photo: Nigel Marsh. CC-BY-NC

Data sharing is an ongoing effort even after the GBIF project was completed in June 2023. The Auckland Museum and the USP continue collaborating on a project focusing on digitising specimens, funded by UNESCO. Once the specimen images are made available, cataloguing specimens (from the images) will be even more feasible. We expect the current project to feed into the next phase of the data mobilisation programme. Small steps at the time we are enhancing our knowledge of the biodiversity of the Pacific region by piecing data together on the GBIF platform.

Saku vorowaqa (Navakavu dialect, Fiji), Swordfish (English), *Xiphias gladius*
© Photo: Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Nice. CC-BY-NC

_{Banner image: Sara ni veilase / sara (Navakavu dialect, Fiji); blue-green damsel fish (English),}_{Chromis viridis.}

_{Photo: Kelly Thomas Brown. CC-BY-NC}