The second Biodiversity Information Management Forum (BIMF) was held at Victoria Hotel, Blantyre Malawi from 28th to 29th May 2019 with the theme “Building Information products from Biodiversity datasets. BIMF provides a platform for biodiversity data holding institutions (researchers) and biodiversity data users to meet and discuss best management of Biodiversity data in order to contribute to sustainable development in the country. This year’s BIMF attracted several stakeholder from government institutions, non-governmental organisation and private sector.
This year’s BIMF was presided by the deputy director general of environmental affairs Mr. Ben Yassin pointed out that Malawi is making strides in the promotion, conservation, sustainable, fair and equitable use of Biodiversity.
He cited the department’s collaboration with the National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST) which is the GBIF Node in the country, which has enabled them to come up with a portal where the public will easily access information on Biodiversity. Furthermore he said that through the portal which NCST is hosting, it is providing information on the functions of the ecosystems such as issues of water availability, economic values and provision of other services such as food. He also indicated that the department has been facing challenges getting information from sectors but with Biodiversity Information Management forum (BIMF) and the availability of the Integrated Publishing Toolkit portal system (IPT), accessing information has become very easy.
National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST) will continue receiving biodiversity Information from all biodiversity sectors, process it and making it freely available for the general public to access it. Malawi Biodiversity Information (Datasets) can be accessed through integrated publishing toolkit (IPT) portal at http://41.77.13.208:8081/ipt/
SANBI encouraged all stakeholders to take part in spearheading the purpose of the BIMF in Malawi by providing the necessary support. Regular meetings and coordination of BIMF will help Malawi’s biodiversity status report reflect the reality on the ground.