Systematic biodiversity planning (also known as systematic conservation planning) identifies priority areas for biodiversity conservation within the landscape. With the limited resources available for biodiversity conservation it is important to have a mechanism to prioritize areas for conservation action.
Systematic biodiversity planning uses a rigorous, data-driven approach to identify geographic priorities for biodiversity conservation. It represents best available science internationally and is the standard approach to biodiversity planning in South Africa.
The key characteristics of a systematic biodiversity plan are:
The principle of representation: the need to conserve a representative sample of all biodiversity pattern (ecosystems and species).
The principle of persistence: the need to maintain ecological processes that allow ecosystems to function and enable biodiversity to persist in the long term.
The setting of quantitative biodiversity targets for biodiversity features, indicating how much of each feature is required in order to conserve a representative sample of biodiversity pattern and key ecological processes.
Spatial efficiency (meeting biodiversity targets as efficiently as possible in terms of the amount of land required), and conflict avoidance (where possible avoiding conflict with other land uses).
Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
The system is still under development, so you may find a few bugs/issues. If you do, please report it via the error reporting button available in various sections of the website or provide us with any useful feedback you may have via the ‘Give us feedback’ option available in the sidebar menu. You can create a free account for yourself by clicking on the user profile icon which will take you through to the login page. Here you can choose the ‘Create an account’ option or simply fill in your details if you have an account already. Having an account on Biodiversity Advisor will provide users with free access to biodiversity resources.
In future, Team SANBI will be able to log in using their day-to-day login details, BGIS users will be able to use their existing accounts and details, and general users will be able to log in using their LinkedIn profile, but for now you will need to create an account.
