The Golden Gate Highlands National Park was abuzz in May 2013, as representatives from across the country made their way to the annual National Biodiversity Planning Forum. This year the Forum celebrated its 10th year, since its inception in 2004. The Biodiversity Planning Forum was established to provide an opportunity for individuals, agencies and departments involved in spatial biodiversity planning to share and synthesize valuable lessons from biodiversity planning projects across South Africa. The core focus of the Forum is on systematic biodiversity planning, with a key theme being planning for implementation. Much of the biodiversity planning done in South Africa underpins strategic interventions and supports improved environmental decision-making.
For more information on the background of the National Biodiversity Planning Forum, Forum objectives and key themes discussed at the 2013 Forum please click here
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.