National Biodiversity Network Trust

The National Biodiversity Network Trust champions the recording and sharing of wildlife data in the UK. We share over 200 million wildlife records through the NBN Atlas - a free, publicly available, dataset. Our vision: Nature thriving everywhere, in all its diversity. Our mission: Making data work for nature. We passionately believe that, together, we can reverse the biodiversity crisis.

nbn.org.uk/

Fundraise for us

Latest News

iNaturalistUK officially launched!

The NBN Trust is excited to announce that iNaturalistUK is the newest member of the international iNaturalist Network.

A collaboration led by the NBN Trust with the Marine Biological Association (MBA) and the Biological Records Centre (BRC), iNaturalistUK joins the wealth of recording tools available to UK naturalists.

Why iNaturalist?

One of the world’s most popular nature apps, iNaturalist helps identify the plants and animals around us while being part of a growing community of scientists and naturalists.

Working with MBA and BRC, the NBN Trust will be developing ways of promoting and using iNaturalist in the UK to complement the other established recording tools already available to the biological recording community, including iRecord and iSpot.

Sharing the data

Users in the United Kingdom are encouraged to affiliate their account to iNaturalistUK to allow partner organisations enhanced access to UK sightings. This won’t affect existing arrangements with how sightings are currently shared to GBIF or are available to the international community. It will allow the BRC and local environmental records centres access to more detailed records.

Whilst there are currently no plans to link iNaturalistUK data directly to the NBN Atlas, over the coming months the BRC will be working with the National Recording Schemes to facilitate the integration of iNaturalistUK data within the schemes. As part of this support, it might include ways in which iNaturalistUK data could be added to the NBN Atlas, if this is something the schemes wish to do.

The MBA will be building on its extensive experience in coastal BioBlitz events to increase the wildlife records that are openly available. The NBN Trust, with its network of members, is well placed to engage with these citizen scientists and encourage greater participation in wildlife recording, particularly for groups with little previous experience.

The iNaturalist network and community

The iNaturalist community in the United Kingdom has been growing steadily over the past few years. From around 10,000 observers in early 2019 there are now around 65,000 observers who have recorded over 16,000 species in the UK. The growth of the City Nature Challenge event in the UK has encouraged its popularity.

The iNaturalist Network now has fifteen nationally-focused sites that are fully connected and interoperable with the global iNaturalist site. These include Naturalista Colombia, iNaturalist Australia, iNaturalist Israel, iNaturalist Finland, and iNaturalist Luxembourg, and now iNaturalist United Kingdom.

Any iNaturalist user can log in on any of the sites using their same username and password and will see the same notifications. All data from all network sites are still shared globally and fully accessible from each site using search filters.

Find out more

Find out more by visiting the iNaturalistUK information pages on the NBN Trust website.

About us

The National Biodiversity Network (NBN) is a collaborative partnership created to exchange biodiversity information. The NBN Trust, the charity which oversees and facilitates the development of the Network, is a membership organisation built on these partnership principles.

The NBN Trust needs your support. We’re on a mission to make data work for nature, but we can’t do it alone. If the UK is to achieve its goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, we need to work harder than ever to make the essential evidence available.

• We need your voice, to help us be heard. • We need your collaboration, because together we can all achieve more for nature.
• We need your support, to sustain and grow our small, but mighty team, and to make the NBN Atlas even better.

Wildlife data are recorded by many organisations and people, many of whom are volunteers, collected together using a range of systems, verified by experts, curated by a wide range of organisations and then aggregated and shared regionally primarily by Local Environmental Record Centres and nationally via the NBN Atlas (www.nbnatlas.org) which holds over 200 million wildlife occurrence records.

The Network’s priority is to grow the national commitment to sharing wildlife data and information. Through this we will provide a comprehensive, unparalleled and authoritative understanding of our natural world and will use that knowledge effectively to educate and inform.

In 2021 iNaturalistUK (https://uk.inaturalist.org/) was launched - this free to use wildlife recording website and app allows anyone to record the wildlife around them and contribute to scientific research.

The NBN Trust is a charity focused on collating and sharing data. Information on the UK's precious biodiversity is vital so we can understand what is happening in the natural world around us.

Storing and managing that data is expensive. We need income to pay for servers and to maintain, develop and improve the NBN Atlas. We need to support the growing community of wildlife recorders and ensure we have the information to understand the UK's biodiversity.

We receive no guaranteed funding so rely on the support of our members, including many individuals, and donations.

Find out more about the NBN www.nbn.org.uk