The NSC Alliance has submitted testimony to the House Appropriations Committee regarding fiscal year (FY) 2022 funding for certain programs that curate natural history collections within the Department of the Interior and Smithsonian Institution. “Preservation of specimens and the strategic growth of these collections are in the best interest of science and the best interest […]
Scientists Call for Implementing a Community Vision for the Future of Biodiversity Collections
Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the crucial role played by biodiversity collections in enabling rapid responses to crises and in facilitating ongoing research across numerous fields. Despite the recognized value of this infrastructure, the community nevertheless has further opportunities to maximize its value to the scientific enterprise. A new Viewpoint article in […]
NSC Alliance Joins Community in Urging Biden to Champion RISE Act
A coalition of more than 200 scientific and academic stakeholder groups, including NSC Alliance, have asked President Biden to champion the Research Investment to Spark the Economy (RISE) Act (H.R.869, S.289) and support full funding for the initiatives the legislation would create. “The widespread, detrimental impact of COVID-19 on research and researchers, particularly those from underrepresented […]
Science Committees Announce Leadership
Committees in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate with jurisdiction over science have announced the leadership for their subcommittees. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, announced the new structure and leadership of its subcommittees last month. Freshman Senator John […]
USFWS Requests Recommendations for Amending CITES Appendices
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora or CITES is an international treaty aimed at ensuring that international trade in listed animal and plant species does not threaten their survival. Currently there are 183 Parties to CITES, 182 countries, including the United States, and one regional economic integration organization, […]
NSC Alliance Highlights Biodiversity Collections in Letter to House Science Committee
On March 1, 2021, NSC Alliance joined forces with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) in highlighting to lawmakers the value of mobilizing biodiversity specimens and data in spurring new scientific discoveries. In the letter to House Science Committee Leadership, the groups bring attention […]
Lawmakers Advance Next COVID-19 Relief Package
Lawmakers are now working to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package—the blueprint for which was adopted by both chambers of Congress on February 5, 2021 in the form of a budget resolution. A budget resolution does not require the President’s signature and serves as a guide to the House and Senate on overall […]
New Report on the Economics of Biodiversity
A new report, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, offers a comprehensive economic framework for biodiversity. It contends that the ongoing biodiversity loss is undermining the productivity, resilience, and adaptability of nature and poses significant risks to the global economy and human well-being. The independent review was commissioned by the UK government and led […]
Collections in the News
A new paper published in Nature shows how collections have been used to understand the impacts of recent wildfires on Australian vegetation. The publication, Implications of the 2019–2020 megafires for the biogeography and conservation of Australian vegetation (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21266-5), reports on the biogeographic and taxonomic impact of Australia’s 2019–2020 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires. The authors quantified the […]
Global Consultation on Converging Digital and Extended Specimens Begins
Over the past year there have been several exciting conversations about the possibilities of digital representations of the billions of specimens currently held in the world’s natural history collections. Two concepts—the Digital Specimen proposed by the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) in Europe and the Extended Specimen emerging from the Biological Collections Network (BCoN) […]