FinBIF

FinBIF, the Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility, is Finland’s national gateway to biodiversity data. It aggregates and provides access to data on species occurrences, specimen records, images, and checklists from a range of sources, including museums, herbaria, research institutions, and citizen science projects. The portal enables users to search by taxon, location, or time and to view interactive distribution maps, as well as to download data for analysis.

The platform serves as a central component of Finland’s biodiversity information infrastructure, supporting researchers, public authorities, conservation practitioners, educators, and the general public. FinBIF data are contributed by numerous providers across Finland and are shared through the portal, with data also disseminated to international networks such as GBIF. The system emphasizes data standardization and quality, using accepted taxonomic backbones and data formats to facilitate integration and reuse.

Access is available through the web portal and programmatic interfaces, enabling both manual exploration and automated queries for scientific analyses, environmental monitoring, and policy-making. FinBIF also accommodates citizen science contributions by offering tools to submit observations and link them to verifiable sources.

Governance and funding are provided by Finnish research institutions and public support, with Luomus (the Finnish Natural History Museum) and affiliated partners playing key roles in operation and development. FinBIF adheres to open data principles and aims to promote broad data sharing to advance biodiversity knowledge in Finland and beyond.