The 11th Annual National Biodiversity Planning Forum, hosted by SANBI, was held from the 13th to the 16th of May at Mpekweni Beach Resort in the Eastern Cape. This year’s event was exceedingly well attended, boasting over 200 participants who included biodiversity planners and implementers from national and provincial government, provincial conservation agencies, municipalities, SANBI, SANParks, universities, research institutes, NGOs and consultants. Interns and students were also well represented, with close to 50 Groen Sebenza interns in attendance.Some of the main thematic areas at this year’s Forum included:
Mapping ecological infrastructure to inform policy and decision-making
New regulations for invasive species: exploring implications and opportunities linked to spatial data and planning
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SAE) for the expansion of Electricity Grid Infrastructure (SIP 10)
Update on the National Biodiversity Assessment 2017 and National Ecosystem Classification System
National and provincial biodiversity planning initiatives and processes
Web-based tools and mobile applications
For more information on the 2014 Biodiversity Planning Forum click here. Please click here for the 2015 Biodiversity Planning Forum programme and click on the links below to access the presentations.
Strategic Integrated Projects (SIPs): work session on the development of a constraints framework for the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the expansion of Electricity Grid Infrastructure (SIP 10)
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.