Under the direction of the BioNET-INTERNATIONAL Technical Secretariat, the Institute of Zoology, of the Chinese Academy of Science organized and hosted the Formulation Workshop for EASIANET. The workshop agreed a proposal to establish EASIANET, the East Asian Network for Taxonomic Capacity Building. The proposal is being considered by the Governments of East Asia. If approved, EASIANET will join the other 120 countries that are already part of the the BioNET-INTERNATIONAL Global Network for Taxonomy.

BioNET-INTERNATIONAL AND THE GLOBAL TAXONOMY INITIATIVE
BioNET-INTERNATIONAL is dedicated to supporting sustainable development, in particular by helping developing countries to implement the Global Taxonomy Initiative Programme of Work agreed in April 2002 by the 183 countries that recognise the Convention on Biologicial Diversity.

EASIANET has been proposed as a subregional Technical Cooperation Network to help overcome the taxonomic impediment by becoming self-reliant in taxonomy, i.e. self-reliant in the skills, infrastructure and technologies needed to discover, identify, name, classify and to understand the relationships of all organisms.

Read the EASIANET proposal and discover the opportunities for working institutions in the region to achieve of demand-driven taxonomic capacity building in East Asia. The proposal describes how the network will contribute to implementation of the CBD and other agreements and contains a summary, explanation of the need for taxonomic capacity building internationally and the priorities identified in East Asia, the structure and mandates for EASIANET, work programmes for EASIANET, a list of member institutions and a participants list from the Formulation Workshop.