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

Biodiversity Information in developing countries:

opportunities and challenges for promoting TDWG standards in

AfricaWG standards in Africa

BIODIVERSITY IN AFRICA

Wildlife, rich species diversity

Unique agr0-biodiversity

Wide range of ecosystems

WIDE RANGE OF STAKEHOLDERS

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

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.

BIODIVERSITY SUPPORT PROGRAMME

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.

GLOBAL RECOGNITION

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.

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL LEVELS NETWORKS

SANBICentral African

Biodiversity Information Network (CABIN)

GBIF National Nodes

REGIONAL NETWORKS/MEETINGS

HIGHER LEARNING and RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

CHALLENGES

Natural Hazards/Climate ChangeRegional Conflicts/InsecurityLimited ExpertiseSocio-economicsFunding LimitationsPoor GovernancePoor institutional frameworkFlow of raw dataData dissemination and knowledge sharing

CABIN INITIATIVE

Central Africa Biodiversity Information Network

Working closely with CEPDEC and GBIF

Workflow of Data Publication

Export in CSV document

(‘Comma separated values’)

Desktop source database

(eg. Excel)

1 2 3

GBIF portal

Local computerRegional servers publishing data on the web

Web

4

Internet PublishingToolkit

Or BioCASE provider

Workflow of Data Publication

Local computer

Regional servers publishing data on the web

WebData provider

Data consumer

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

Technical Support for and in Central African Countries

ChallengesLack 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

Technical Support for and in Central African Countries

StrengthsGood scientific and technical knowledge availableTechnical 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

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

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)

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)

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.

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.

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

THANK YOU