Photos © Bill Yancey

JRS Biodiversity Foundation generously funds ACC’s Bioinformatics program – most recently, they are funding the Kenyan Biodiversity Web Portal.

ACC was the lead organization in compiling the Kenya National Biodiversity Atlas, soon to be published by the Kenyan Ministry of the Environment. This Atlas documents Kenya’s natural capital including its biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports and assembles the scattered datasets that exist across various institutions into a common integrated biodiversity database. Hard copies will be available at no cost to various agencies, research institutions and the general public.

To further increase availability of data, ACC is now working with a network of collaborators to develop a Kenya Biodiveristy Web Portal, (the initial data sets coming from the Kenya National Biodiversity Atlas). This portal will be open access, and support data acquisition, storage, visualization, and analysis for a variety of uses while maintaining standards to facilitate data exchange and scalability for application in Kenya and East Africa.

Objective 1 — Determine key biodiversity datasets useful to support decision making processes.

Objective 2 — Develop web portal to consolidate

Objective 3 — Develop national and county level tools (Kwale and Kajiado Couties) for spatial visualization, analysis, and reporting.

Objective 4 — Outreach and training to build capacity among lead local agencies, ACC and National Museums of Kenya and by Map of Life and UPANDE to help teach web development skills and how to communicate with maps.

• All biodiversity related data made available on the online portal for the Natural Capital of Kenya project.
• Tools for mapping and analysis of the data will be developed for the priority target audience for download and application, hopefully reaching 200 registered users and 500 downloads.
• Regionally the project will provide a use‐case and value proposition for creating and promoting regional biodiversity knowledge portals in Kajiado and Kwale.
• Tools for engaging natural resource managers as well as citizens will be developed.
• Training in biodiversity informatics for key staff through project partners.

• Provide high quality information and data for research, policy development, management and planning in order to develop more effective means of sustaining Kenya’s biodiversity.
• Increase the influence of biodiversity information in decision making processes and planning.
• Increase the level at which people share what they know about biodiversity through information networks, making public access to the information more readily available and broadening the audience.
• Additional counties may seek their own portals as well as partner agencies who volunteer to publish data and to provide financial support.