Case Studies

SPNHC-TDWG 2024 was actually the second joint meeting for two related groups. SPNHC, pronounced "spinach," is a society for the preservation of natural history collections—specimen collections in museums and research centers, both digital and actual, but also observations and recording of things in the natural world— birds, plants, algae, fungi, etc. TDWG, pronounced "Tadwig," is an acronym for "taxonomic database working group." Although, says conference co-chair and TDWG Deputy Chair David Bloom, "We changed the name to the biodiversity information standards organization, or BIS, because that is what our activities have become exchanging data about biodiversity, earth sciences and so on. But we kept the TDWG brand name because everyone has used that since the 1980s. We have evolved into a group of scientists who are exchanging data in a standard manner, so that we can better use the data and do better research by harmonizing how we understand different terms."

Fellow event planner Dr. Patricia Mergen, Liaison Officer at Belgium's Meise Botanic Garden and AfricaMuseum, explains more about the 2024 Okinawa event. "SPNHC is a sister association, and sometimes we do meetings together. We did it in 2018 in New Zealand, and now again here because they are working on the collections themselves, less on data as TDWG does, but these are really nice areas to collaborate. We decided to do it together, which also gives us more delegates because there are two associations joining together."

"Because Dr. Mergen visited Okinawa back in 2019, we knew this would be a promising candidate venue for a future event," says Mariko Kageyama of SPNHC, a bilingual zoology collections manager turned lawyer based in the U.S., as well as one of the steering committee members for the event. "We had looked for a local host organization, but when we couldn't find a suitable partner, we decided to organize the conference directly under the oversight of an international joint team formed by SPNHC-TDWG. Fortunately, we then received funding support from the Japan Tourism Agency and the Okinawa Convention and Visitors Bureau. But what really helped was to be able to work closely with a bilingual, Japanese American professional convention organizer. His presence convinced our international team that we could successfully hold an event here in Okinawa."

While Mr. Bloom was not involved in the initial decision to hold the event in Okinawa, he says the choice of Japan and Okinawa was a good one. "With TDWG, we often meet in North America one year, in Europe the next year, and then the third year is sort of a wild card, where we meet at a location that is not where the majority of our participants live. That's been changing over the last number of years because the people involved in this work that are not just from North America and Europe anymore, and more and more are in Asia. Okinawa is a beautiful place, obviously. The combination of the culture in Japan, and the culture of Okinawa, which is even different and more unique in some ways than mainland Japan, and also the richness of biodiversity in this region is just a great opportunity for us to be able to bring people together who are interested in all of those things. On the practical side, we need to hold a meeting like this where we have facilities able to accommodate a large group of people. So the Convention Center, with three good-sized hotels within walking distance, was important. A facility that can handle the technology needs, the Wi-Fi, the ability to allow us to encourage the participation of virtual participants, these were the things that attracted us to Okinawa and this facility."