INFOTERRA, The Global Environmental Information Exchange Network, is funded by United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). The INFOTERRA network as a whole handles more than 40,000 queries per year on every aspect of the human and physical environment, including the control of lead pollution or acid rain to sustainable management of national parks and conservation of fragile ecosystems. Over 85% of enquiries are responded to with substantive information, sometimes in the form of existing publications or research data, and sometimes tailor-made to a specific enquiry in a specialised area of concern. There is no membership fee and no charge for most Infoterra services. Users merely submit their query to their NFP by mail, telephone, telex, fax, e-mail or personal visit. Answers are usually provided free of charge. If a commercial database is used, or costly on-line searches are made, the user will be charged at cost. If the enquiry comes from an official of a developing country, they may qualify for a totally free service.
Information services include:
(a) INFOTERRA discussion list: a public email list intended for general communications on environmental topics; posing queries to the Infoterra network; requesting information from UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme); etc. Subscription to this list is open. In addition to posing queries, subscribers are encouraged to respond to queries as well, since this list will ultimately be comprised of both sources and users of environmental Information on a global basis. List is archived on the CEDAR WWW/gopher.
(b) International Directory of Sources: compiled by the Programme Activity Centre in Nairobi. Sources are constantly monitored and updated, and new ones are being added all the time. The International Directory of Sources exists as both printed ‘hardcopy’ and as a database (on CDS-ISIS). It is also available on the CEDAR gopher/WWW (see separate entry) and on UNEP’s own gopher. For this reason the International Directory is often referred to as the INFOTERRA Database. It does not contain all the world’s environmental information in itself, but is the means of access to more than 7,000 sources of information on over 1,000 environmental subjects. The sources are located in government ministries and documentation centres, research institutes, universities, non-governmental and international organisations, United Nations agencies and private consultancies. The sources can be accessed by country, by name of organisation and by environmental subject-area.
(c) Information about the programme on the UNEP WWW and gopher services
(d) Support for a information network between Southern African (SADC) countries: environmental bibliographical/document exchange and identification of sources
(e) Envoc thesaurus of environmental terms: 4th edition, 1997. The thesaurus terms are available on the Cedar WWW (see separate entry)