Nam Dinh has been selected as the first province in the country to pilot a project to develop a national biodiversity database system.

The decision was made by the project’s Joint Coordination Committee at its meeting in Hanoi on May 30.

Accordingly, the project will be piloted at the Xuan Thuy National Park in Nam Dinh and then be implemented in all nature reserves in the remaining 63 provinces and cities across the country.

Vietnam Environmental Administration (VEA) Deputy Director Nguyen The Dong, who is also Vice President of the Joint Coordination Committee, said the committee will continue coordinating with relevant agencies to develop the second generation of the national biodiversity database system through evaluating the project’s outcomes based on such criteria as suitability, efficiency, impacts and sustainability.

According to participants, Vietnam is a country rich in biodiversity, which makes up about 10 percent of global organisms. However, biodiversity databases are scattered in agencies, research institutes and universities and no systematic investigations have been conducted to evaluate national biodiversity.

Therefore, the development of an international-level national biodiversity database system will significantly contribute to making plans to manage and conserve the biodiversity for the country’s national nature reserves in a scientific and feasible way, they said.

The meeting, the second of its kind, was co-organised by the VEA and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).-VNA