Protection of Wildlife and Monitoring of Pollution in the Environment : Environmental Monitoring and Specimen Banking

Abstract

Environmental Specimen Banking, a long-term storage of biological samples collected for environmental monitoring under low temperature, is an efficient back-up for the monitoring by enabling retrospective analysis of unattended / unanalyzed pollutants / biomarkers using advanced, more sensitive analytical methods in future. An outline and history of the related activities in Japan as well as in the world, together with the Environmental Time Capsule program being conducted in the National Institute for Environmental Studies, will be presented.