Plants of PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Use of data and information from Plants of Papua New Guinea Website

FITNESS FOR PURPOSE: The data presented in Plants of Papua New Guinea Website are the collection label information on the herbarium collections held at the participating herbaria.

While participating herbaria aim to ensure that the information in their databases is validated on entry, maintained, updated and corrected, errors can still occur, so please read the Disclaimer of Liability below.

Much of the data provided through the Plants of Papua New Guinea website has been acquired for use in plant taxonomy and systematics and while suitable for these purposes may not be suitable for related or more specialised activity such as geographic information systems where high levels of precision are required. These data and their representation are provided as a reference or guide and should be checked for accuracy and precision before use.

The Convention on Biological Diversity noted the need to make biodiversity data available despite the presence of imperfections, rather than holding back information until more polished products were completed. The participating herbaria support this view and therefore make these datasets available in their present form as a reference service for users.

Errors of locality. One of the most common significant errors will be the use of incorrect locality geocodes, and together with missing or imprecise data will be most apparent when inspecting the distribution maps generated from specimen databases.

The precision of locality records affects their suitability for use at particular scales. Localities that show meaningful distribution patterns at a national or province level are not necessarily precise enough for use at more local levels and should always be used with care.

Errors of identification. Other common significant errors will be the misidentification of specimens, inconsistencies arising from the process of taxonomic change and differences in taxonomic interpretation between herbaria.

It is important to be aware of the differences in taxonomy that exist between the participating herbaria and that care will be needed in framing queries to take into account differing views of the taxa represented by a plant name.

Feedback. We encourage the users of these data to notify the participating herbaria of errors and to contribute vouchered specimens where gaps in our documentation of species distributions are obvious to them.

We welcome any comments about the information and presention of these data via the Plants of Papua New Guinea website. MAIL US

COPYRIGHT STATUS: 2004 National and regional Governments of Papua New Guinea; and Federal, State and Territory Governments of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, Commonwealth of Australia, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

These and other Australian and Papua New Guinean agencies, non-government agencies and individuals have certain rights in this material.

Individual documents or Internet services on or accessed by this server may have different intellectual property and copyright conditions, and this will be noted in those documents or services.

PUBLIC ACCESS: Information and data on this server are provided for the personal research and non-commercial use of educators, students, scholars and the public.

Permission is granted to make internet hypertext and other electronic links to any part of these resources. Unless otherwise stated, material presented on this server may be copied for personal, research or non-commercial use, or published for non-commercial educational purposes, provided the source and custodians of any extracts are fully acknowledged.

Use of text, data, images for non-commercial web sites is allowed on condition that credit is given to the custodial organisations.

Any commercial use or publication of these resources without permission of the custodians is strictly prohibited.

DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY: No guarantees or warranty, expressed or implied, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, are made as to the currency, accuracy, quality, completeness, availability or usefulness of data, information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, provided through this service, and no responsibility or legal liability is assumed for any damages or inconvenience arising from its use.

DISCLAIMER OF ENDORSEMENT: The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed on this service are those of the author(s) and data custodian(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National or regional Papua New Guinean Government or any other Papua New Guinean Government agency, the Australian Commonwealth Government, any Australian State or Territory Government, any Australian regional government, or any other Australian Government agency.

Reference on this service to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favouring by the participating herbaria or any Australian or Papua New Guinean Government agency and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

NOTICE: Information from this service resides on a computer system funded by the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney 2000, NSW, Australia. The use of this system may be monitored for computer performance and security purposes. In line with privacy legislation any user information collected by the system administrator will be treated as private and confidential and will not be made available to third parties. Any unauthorized access to this system is prohibited and is subject to various Australian criminal and civil laws.