Biodiversity Clearing-House Mechanism in China: present status and future needs

China is one of the 'megadiversity' countries of the world, and is therefor e rich in biodiversity information. The decision making on biodiversity con servation and sustainable utilization demands sufficient, accurate, data an d information which covers living things as well as natural background and human activities. It is estimated that 152 biodiversity databases have been developed in China, mainly distributed in the thematic information categor ies of forestry, nature reserve, forest ecosystem, animal, plant, crop germ plasm resource, traditional Chinese medicine, water resource, geology/geogr aphy, and climate/meteorology, etc. The status quo of biodiversity informat ion system was also reviewed and main information networks related to biodi versity were presented. There are problems in the CHM construction in China , such as insufficient funding, unreasonable organizational mechanism, and low-level information sharing. Future needs for the CHM construction were d iscussed.