pdf Surfing the Climate Wave – Pushing quality data on northern biodiversity online is essential for informed climate change adaptation strategies in northern regions. Popular

Rob Gau, Government of the Northwest Territories
Suzanne Carriere, Government of the Northwest Territories
Kate Reid, Government of the Northwest Territories
Bonnie Fournier, Government of the Northwest Territories
Cyprian Ngolah, Government of the Northwest Territories

Field work is notoriously expensive in northern regions; so all data collected there are invaluable. Northern capacity to identify species and archive data on biodiversity is also very limited. Canada’s Northwest Territories is experiencing one of the fastest rates of change in climate in the World. Over the past 20 years, Canada’s Northwest Territories has gained experience in adapting monitoring protocols, harnessing all knowledge sources, including Indigenous traditional knowledge, and leveraging national and international systems to better share biodiversity information online with a northern public increasingly savvy with the internet. Results of our efforts will be shared and discussed. Barriers to sharing northern biodiversity data will also be discussed: lack of shared standards on taxonomy and data sensitivity, rapid application turnovers, and jurisdictional silos. In March 2018, the Government of the Northwest Territories has adopted an Open Government Policy. This will provides additional incentives to work through barriers and make more northern biodiversity data from our region accessible to the world.