In March 2021, School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH) was awarded a grant for the implementation of the Biodiversity Information Development (BID) project on Capacity development for the mobilization and use of BID data on endangered bird species in Kenya.

The project which is funded by Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) as part of the 2021 Biodiversity Information for Development programme and co-funded by the International Foundation of Science (IFS) officially commenced its training project on 25th May, 2021.

Successful applicants

Following an intensive application process , the successful graduate students, early career scientists and conservancy managers officially began the training project.

The project applied a Training of Trainers model (T.O.T) to enhance the capacity of the successful applicants to use BID data through collaborative publishing of conservation briefs and peer reviewed articles.

The successful applicants expressed studiousness throughout the session as the facilitator, Dr. David Chiawo, Dean, STH, engaged them in a brainstorming session.

Background

The Biodiversity Information Development programme aims to establish a community of practice to improve data acquisition and sharing, analysis and scholarly publication using GBIF data. The project is focused on enhancing national-level capacity to use Biodiversity Information Development (BID) data on endangered bird species in Kenya under three objectives:

1. Integrating GBIF Biodiversity Information Development data into conservation decision-making via conservation policy briefs created in collaboration with graduate students, early-career scientists, and conservation managers;
2. Enhancing the use of BID data by graduate students and early-career scientists through the publication of peer-reviewed articles;
3. Strengthening the capacity of conservation managers to collect policy-relevant biodiversity data through citizen science.

Why endangered birds?

The project will mainly focus on conservation of endangered birds. Following a continued habitat loss, birds have the highest number of critically endangered species among animal taxa in Kenya. There is only limited evidence of the use of existing data on the species to inform conservation managements and development and many existing publications lack relevance to conservation policy and development through joint publications among graduate students, early career scientists and conservation decision making. Through joint activities during the workshops, we hope to create linkages between researchers and conservation policymakers narrowing the gap at science-policy interface.

 

This article was written by Briege Mwangi, a Bachelor of Arts in Communication student. 

 

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