Report prepared for the Experts Meeting Towards the Implementation of a Global Invasive Species
Information Network (GISIN), 6-8 April, 2004. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Page 5
8/30/2004
The Baltimore Declaration
Technical Workshop on the Implementation of a
Global Invasive Species Information Network (GISIN)
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
6-8 April 2004
We the participants in the aforementioned scientific workshop recognize that:
Invasive alien species (IAS) represent one of the foremost challenges to the integrity of
agriculture, natural ecosystems, and biodiversity in the new millennium. IAS cost human
societies hundreds of billions of USA dollars per year in control costs and losses to agricultural
production, human health, and ecosystem services, far exceeding the combined cost of natural
disasters such as floods, wildfires, oil spills, and earthquakes.¹ The threat is global. The
increasing movement of people and biological products in global travel and trade render every
landscape on earth vulnerable to new infestations.
Freely available information on sources, identities, pathways, and successes and failures of
past control efforts provide our best protection against the onslaught of new invaders. This
requires building an easily accessible global network for sharing and exchanging data,
information, and knowledge (i.e., digital content) about invasive species and their management,
among hundreds of governments and research institutions and including thousands of data,
information, and knowledge providers and users. Such a network will have to be built on
commonly shared ideas and concepts, and will have to provide a platform for the exchange of
different viewpoints.
The objectives of the Experts Meeting were as follows:
Creation of an online working group community that will develop a global invasive
species information network,
Agreement on common data types for the creation of cross searches for invasive species
information at a global level,
Creation and distribution of a proposal funding toolkit, with templates, sample proposals,
and detailed lists of possible funding sources for this information network,
Generation and maintenance of an extensive annotated link list of online invasive species
databases,
Reporting new developments on IAS research and information management throughout
the world, and
Development of a report of the workshop's proceedings and the results of a survey of
participants concerning their region's current status of invasive species information
1
UNEP. December 2003. Press release. Weather Related natural Disasters in 2003 Cost the World Billions.
Accessed online (30 May 2004)
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