National network for biodiversity data exchange (2018-2020)


The full name of this two-year project is “National network on biodiversity data exchange for improved Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) management”. It is funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF).

The project is based on the success of a previous project, led by PCA members, on Seychelles’ Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs). At that time a considerable amount of biodiversity data was collected, including many species discoveries and an extensive collection of images (www.seychellesplantgallery.com).

Another key aspect of the KBA study’s success was the collaboration between various institutions and NGOs of Seychelles.

Our new project aims at giving the KBA studies a new ‘kick’. What we want to achieve is:

  1. Have the KBA database available online to members of the scientific community.
  2. Give members the possibility to enter new data in a standard way and with a powerful, user-friendly tool.
  3. Allow anybody to contribute observations and photos. They will benefit from the galleries of images and the local pool of experts, and help build up species knowledge and identification capacities.
  4. Enlarge the KBA database and the image gallery to integrate data collection at the ecosystem level (not only species level).
  5. Enlarge further the KBA database to allow the integration of not only species and ecosystem occurrences or records, but also species monitoring data, species communities, populations, and other data where records are nested within well-defined inventories, but maybe have different methods and purposes. This is mostly carried out in collaboration with the Island Conservation Society (ICS) and linked with a GoS-GEF-UNDP-funded project. The main aim of ICS is to solve data management issues, as their data is currently stored in many separate files and databases.
  6. Last but not least, the development of these tools is mostly aimed at generating more synergies between the different actors of the Seychelles scientific and conservationist community. We believe that this tool will encourage the production of joint studies, joint publications and joint projects for ongoing biodiversity data conservation and for their use in conservation actions.

See the following link: www.inaturalist.org/projects/seychelles-bio-gallery