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[Images appear of small coloured birds, trees, flowers, echidnas, bacteria and stingrays connected by dotted lines]

Narrator: Our planet has a stunningly complex and diverse array of living things all interacting with each other in a series of connected ecosystems.

[Text appears in the centre: Biodiversity]

We call this biodiversity.

[Image shifts to the left and more text appears on the right of the screen: Cleans Air & Water, Creates Food, Shelters Life, Forms Fabric of our Home]

From wattle birds to wattles, to nitrogen fixing bacteria, biodiversity cleans air and water, creates food, shelters life and forms the fabric of the only home we have.

[Image moves to the right and a pink line appears through the word “biodiversity” and gradually the coloured pictures of animals and plants disappear]

If you remove any species or population an ecosystem can collapse.

[Image changes and a businessman, a worker and a researcher appear and then the camera zooms out and text appears joined by a line through the people: Biodiversity Data, Effective Decisions]

Decision makers, researchers and practitioners are in constant need of biodiversity data to make effective decisions on its management.

[Image shows the line joining through them moving up and down causing the people to move out of line and text changes either end of the line to read: Fragmented, Inaccessible]

However, doing so is made difficult by fragmented and often inaccessible data both in Australia and around the world.

[Images of the three people move out and three dotted circles appear next to the people displaying trees, birds and fish inside them]

Scientists and researchers are often left with small pieces of the puzzle to work with while others struggle with their own pieces in isolation.

[Image changes to show the ALA logo and text “Atlas of Living Australia” and then the image moves to the left and new text appears on the right: Aggregating Australian Biodiversity Data, Wide Range of Sources]

The Atlas of Living Australia, or ALA is addressing this problem by aggregating Australian biodiversity data from a wide range of sources

[Image changes to show animation images of a university, museum, Parliament House and the CSIRO building and text appears below the buildings: Universities, Museums, Government, CSIRO]

including universities, museums, the Australian Government and the CSIRO.

[Image changes to show three circles containing a dollar symbol, the ALA logo and books and text appears beneath two of the circles, NCRIS National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, CSIRO]

The ALA is an NCRIS funded national research facility posted by CSIRO.

[Camera zooms in on the centre circle and text lines appear one after the other inside the circle,

73 000 000 entries, 120 000 species, Birds, Mammals, Insects, Fish, Plants, And More]

It now contains over 73,000,000 entries covering over 120,000 species including birds, mammals, insects, fish, plants and more.

[Image changes to show a keyboard and screen and text appears below: Free online, Clear picture of Biodiversity]

The database is freely accessible to anyone online allowing Australians to see a clear picture of our biodiversity.

[Camera zooms in on the keyboard and screen and a circle appears around them and text appears above: ALA Platform]

And now it’s stretching to the rest of the world.

[Text lines appear showing names of countries joined by dotted lines to the circle and then more text lines appear showing countries not joined to the circle: Scotland, Spain, Estonia, Costa Rica, France, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, several other countries are currently investigating its use]

The ALA platform has been implemented in countries like Scotland, Spain, Estonia and Costa Rica.

[Image changes to show coloured animals birds and fish gradually appearing to form the shape of a map of the world and the image moves to the left and text appears: Global picture of biodiversity, Freely accessible, Governments, Organisations Individuals]

Not only do these databases build an understanding of the biodiversity within those countries, we are developing a community of practice to create a global picture of biodiversity.

[Image changes to show a business man, a worker and a researcher and ticks and text appear below them: Better Informed Decisions, Securing Significant Efficiency Gains, Data Management and On-Ground Actions]

With this knowledge freely accessible around the world, governments, organisations and individuals have been able to make better informed decisions about our planet’s broad and complex biodiversity, securing significant efficiency gains for data management and on ground actions relating to biodiversity.

[ALA logo and text appears: Atlas of Living Australia]

[Music plays and CSIRO logo and text appears: Australia’s innovation catalyst]