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BIODIVERSITY IN AFRICA

Biodiversity Information in developing countries: opportunities and challenges for promoting TDWG standards in Africa WG standards in Africa. Charles Kahindo¹, Theeten Franck², Cael Garin², Noé Nicolas³, Manuana Jean‐Pierre, Kasajima Motonobu, Tchibozo Sévérin, 6 Mergen Patricia²

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BIODIVERSITY IN AFRICA

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  1. Biodiversity Information in developing countries: opportunities and challenges for promoting TDWG standards in AfricaWG standards in Africa Charles Kahindo¹, Theeten Franck², Cael Garin², Noé Nicolas³, Manuana Jean‐Pierre, Kasajima Motonobu, Tchibozo Sévérin, 6Mergen Patricia² ¹ UOB, Université Officielle de Bukavu, DR Congo, ckahindo[at]yahoo.com;² Royal Museum For Central Africa (RMCA), Tervuren, Belgium; ³ Belgian Biodiversity Platform, ULB, Brussels, Belgium;  CEDESURK, Centre de Documentation de l’Enseignement Supérieur Universitaire et de la Recherche de Kinshasa, Kinshasa, DR Congo; UniversiTIC, DR Congo;CERGET, 6Centre de Recherche pour la Gestion de la Biodiversité et du Terroir, Cotonou, Benin

  2. BIODIVERSITY IN AFRICA • Wildlife, rich species diversity • Unique agr0-biodiversity • Wide range of ecosystems

  3. WIDE RANGE OF STAKEHOLDERS Exciting challenges and opportunities for the whole society including :biologists, computer scientists, information scientists ,bioinformaticists, policy-makers etc.

  4. THE AFRICAN BIODIVERSITY NETWORK • Objectives• Consolidate and expand an active and informed network of concerned Africans and their friends engaged in biodiversity issues on the ground• Increase local and national capacity in Africa to protect biodiversity and community rights, and promote sustainable ecological practices.• Catalyse African civil society and governments to take action that will protect and enhance biodiversity and local livelihoods. • Focus Indigenous knowledge, agriculture and biodiversity related rights, policy and legislation. • The ABN is a network committed to unearthing and implementing African solutions to African problems and building solidarity on biodiversity and community rights issues on the continent.

  5. BIODIVERSITY SUPPORT PROGRAMME

  6. BSP (1993) • A Framework for Integrating Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development (1993) • The Biodiversity Support Program is a consortium of World Wildlife Fund, World Resources Institute and The Nature Conservancy, funded by the United States Agency for International Development. • This process of collaborative action between U.S. and African individuals and organizations was an educational and rewarding experience for everyone involved.

  7. GLOBAL RECOGNITION

  8. South African National Biodiversity • The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) promotes easy and open access to biodiversity information. Through its Biodiversity GIS website it provides free access to biodiversity plans, maps and tools to support research, planning and decision-making.

  9. NATIONAL AND REGIONAL LEVELS NETWORKS • SANBI • Central African Biodiversity Information Network (CABIN) • GBIF National Nodes

  10. REGIONAL NETWORKS/MEETINGS

  11. HIGHER LEARNING and RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

  12. CHALLENGES • Natural Hazards/Climate Change • Regional Conflicts/Insecurity • Limited Expertise • Socio-economics • Funding Limitations • Poor Governance • Poor institutional framework • Flow of raw data • Data dissemination and knowledge sharing

  13. CABIN INITIATIVE • Central Africa Biodiversity Information Network • Working closely with CEPDEC and GBIF‏

  14. Workflow of Data Publication Or BioCASE provider GBIF portal Regional servers publishing data on the web Web Local computer 3 2 4 1

  15. Workflow of Data Publication Data provider Local computer Regional servers publishing data on the web Data consumer Web Infrastructure: requires a certain degree of permanence (which can be relatively achieved by cooperation at institutional level)‏ User needs: more difficult to formalize -difficulty to reach scientists and base communities potentially interested in on-line information biodiversity and agriculture -dynamical evolution

  16. Technical Support for and in Central African Countries Challenges • Lack of a common technical culture shared by biologists and IT scientists (no IT part in many academic training scheme in biology)‏ • Weakness of infrastructure (slow bandwidth) => but situation may improve rapidly • Academic training scheme may sometimes be « overspecialized » => knowledge impediment may occur according to the area of work of scientists

  17. Technical Support for and in Central African Countries Strengths • Good scientific and technical knowledge available • Technical infrastructure is improving • Performant satellite connections between Universites in Congo DR (Eb@lé)‏ • New Internet cable connection between Europe and East Africa: Eassy, etc… • Institutions of reference are already ‘open-source’ driven (factor lowering technical ‘insulation’ and obsolescence of technical know how)‏ • Awareness of the need for local and regional synergies at institutional level and self-assess the needs in infrastructure

  18. PLANNED ACTIVITIES • FOSTER COLLABORATION WITH MAIN AGRICULTURE RESEARCH STATIONS • PILOT PROJECT IN DRC TO INVOLVE 4 UNIVERSITIES AND 4 RESEARCH STATIONS. • PROVIDE A FRAMEWORK SETTING FOR A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM OF SCIENTISTS,POLICY MAKERS • FOCUS ON AGRICUTURAL BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT • DISSEMINATE KNOWLEDGE AND TOOLS TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES

  19. CABIN 2010 activities • A one week training schema on «The Digtisation of Natural History Collections» has been organized in Kinshasa in June 2010. Facilities were provided by the CEDESURK (an academic library and IT resource center for higher educational institutions of Congo DR) and pedagogical content was given by RMCA and BeBIF Pictures: Nicolas Noé (BeBIF)

  20. CABIN 2010 activities • The GBIF manual « Digitisation of Natural History Collections Data » provided the backbone of the training. • The training session gathered 15 participants selected by a jury One of the most important selection criterium was having a good balance between biological and IT profiles among the students Topics covered: • Introduction to the technical infrastructure of the GBIF network • Introduction to the concept of metadata and DarwinCore as XML standards mapping biodiversity data and metadata • Data cleaning and quality checking • Georeferencing (exercices with ‘DIVA-GIS’ and datasets provided by the attendants) • Designing of a relational database model for biodiversity and ecological data (exercices with OpenOffice « Base ») • Introduction to project management (the « Project Cycle Management » approach in capacity-building projects)

  21. CABIN 2010 activities • The GBIF manual « Digitisation of Natural History Collections Data » is currently being translated into French (with support of the Belgian Development Collaboration, the French GBIF noe and the central GBIF secretary) • A mailing list gathering the students attending the training has been created and is very active.

  22. CABIN 2010 activities • CABIN is also involved in the LINCAOCNET project (gathering of field data and publication of web portal on edible insects of Western and Central Africa targeting the base communities) managed by Séverin Tchibozo from the CERGET (environmelntal NGO from Benin) and supported by the OIF (‘Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie’). Ethno-Linguistical material will be provided with taxonomical and ecological information.

  23. CABIN 2011 activities • Launching of a call to scientists from Central Africa willing use the CABIN technical infrastructure to publish their biodiversity data on the Internet (observation of collection data) and connect biodiversity networks sich as GBIF. • Mission in Kinshasa (at the CEDESURK) to maintain and update the technical infrastructure installed over there in 2009 (BioCASE data portal and BioCASE/pyWrapper provider) • http://cabin.ebale.cd/CABINPortal

  24. THANK YOU

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