Fighting illegal trade of endangered species with the help of open data and digital commons: the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and Open Knowledge France announce a partnership – Open Knowledge France

"The department of biodiversity, forest and oceans of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and Open Knowledge France announce a partnership to promote open data and digital commons in the fight against the traffic of endangered species. The objective of the partnership is to develop an application that will help to better identify endangered species, determine their legal status according to their country of origin, and inform about the incurred penalties. The partnership also aims to promote access, use and contribution to open data on endangered species through the digital commons such as wikicommons or wikidata. This partnership, for which Open Knowledge France has received a grant of 10 000 euros, is the result of a collaboration between the Ministry and the association during the #Diplonum hackathon which was held on January 25 and 26, 2017 (summary in french). This project will also be supported by a large number of actors specialized in the fight against endangered species trafficking, such as the National Museum of Natural History, the CITES Secretariat, in charge of the International Convention on Endangered Species, the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), which publishes the Species + database, the French customs, as well as wikidata and wikicommons experts."