December 2011, Arabian Peninsula

The “Eye on Earth” Summit was held from 12 to 15 December 2011 in the city of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The logo of this summit entitled the striking words: “from a moment to a movement”.

It was facilitated by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and hosted by the Environment Agency from Abu Dhabi (EAD) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Eye on Earth Summit challenged world leaders and the environmental and societal information networking movement to work on three pillars: Convene, Converge and Collaborate.

Attendants included a variety of stakeholders such as heads of international environmental institutions, Executives of the world's major geospatial and data processing corporations, Global philanthropists, developmental and environmental activists, Ministers of environment and development, Executives of statistical and standards bodies, Executives of major land-user corporations and the best academics active in the field.

There were also side exhibitions that tackled issues such as chemicals management, ecosystem based management, climate change, amongst others.

The importance of this Summit was that it represented an effort to tackle the access to environmental information and data. Environmental knowledge is important and efficient decision-making depends on it.

To obtain further information on the Summit you can access : www.eyeonearthsummit.org