The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) was established in 1989 as a private non-profit institution. Its goal is to promote the wise management and use of the nation's biotic wealth through the development and distribution of information on species, genes, and ecosystems. General operating funds come from a debt-for-nature swap, local and international grants, and development assistance. Funds for INBio's "parataxonomists" program are channeled through the national budget, international grants, and private foundations.

INBio is regarded by many scientists, conservationists, development-assistance experts, and lcoal groups as a pioneering institution in biodiversity management. By promoting the study of biodiversity as a foundation of development, INBio has realized the synergy possible in the edict of "save, study, and use."

Located on the outskirts of San José, INBio's modest physical facility provides a climate-controlled environment for most of the country's formerly-scattered biological collections. Working agreements have been established with the national museum, the national universities, the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines, the Ministry of Science and Technology, other public bureaus, and tropical research and education programs such as the Organization for Tropical Studies, Scouts of America, and Missouri Botanical Garden. Through these agreements, the institutions collaborate on the inventory of certain taxa, the housing and maintenance of collections, research on the chemical screening of natural products, and the promotion of the "intellectual" use of the information in museum displays, exhibits, and education programs.

INBio has launched an ambitious program to inventory all of the nation's species. It is concentrating on insects and plants initially -- a choice guided by existing knowledge and expertise, the availability of funding, and information demand. The national team carrying out the inventory includes professional scientists as well as parataxonomists -- local residents trained to collect and identify specimens. The national team draws on the expertise of such institutions as the University of Pennsylvania (USA), the Natural History Museum (United Kingdom), Missouri Botanical Garden (USA) and the United States Department of Agriculture / Smithsonian Institution (USA), through cooperative agreements.

INBio absorbed the country's Conservation Data Centre (CDC), integrating it into the National Biodiversity Data Base, and, collaborating with experts in information management, it has experimented with new biodiversity data-management techniques. It boasts one of the most advanced data capture-and-processing capabilities in the tropics.

The library of chemical substances being developed at INBio contains samples of materials of potential interest to biotechnology developers and industry. INBio basically brokers the nation's wild biotic wealth, liaising with organizations interested in using that wealth for profit. Under strict contractual arrangements, INBio collaborates with biotechnology concerns and industry to collect and evaluate materials from the wild. All income beyond costs will be placed in a special fund, managed in agreement with the Government and used to protect and manage the country's biological resources. In October 1991, Merck Pharmaceutical agreed to pay INBio $1 million for the opportunity to screen the samples that INBio is collecting. INBio will receive royalties on sales of any products developed from these samples. Even if INBio receives only 2 percent of royalties on pharmaceuticals developed from Costa Rica's biodiversity, it would take only 20 drugs for INBio to be able to earn more funds than Costa Rica currently gets from coffee and bananas -- two major exports.

Through meetings with potential information users, INBio is now expanding its service capability to meet the data needs of governmental agencies, universities, educators, planners, scientists, and industry.