• Be global in scale, though implemented nationally and regionally;
• Be accessible by individuals any where in the world, offering potential benefits to all, while being funded primarily by those that have the greatest financial capabilities;
• Promote standards and software tools designed to facilitate their adaptation into multiple language, character sets and computer encodings;
• Serve to disseminate technological capacity by drawing on and making widely available scientific and technical information, and
• Make biodiversity data universally available, while fully acknowledging and protecting the IPRs of all state holders.

GBIF is working within the framework of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) in which India is already a signatory. No transfer/ exchange of biological material is involved in this collaboration. It is merely sharing of information available in public domain via Internet. We can share the databases as per our choice, as it will allow us access to a variety of global databases, particularly on digitized plant specimens.

GBIF-India Node:

National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) has the third largest herbarium and a national botanical garden. NBRI, Bioinformatics, has developed several national and international linkages in biodiversity databases. Two important international programmes may be mentioned; the first-international project of development of legume database of eight South Asian countries under the aegis of International Legume Database Information Service (ILDIS), UK coordinated by the University of Reading, UK and the second-network/ database/ website of 140 botanic gardens of India in collaboration with Botanic Garden Conservation International (BGCI), UK.