Hello BID community,

I just subscribed to this mailing list and I thought it might be good if I introduced myself.

My name is Gashakamba Faustin, I am the Director of Development and Information Systems at ARCOS. ARCOS is a conservation NGO operating in the Albertine Rift region (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, eastern DRC, northern Zambia and eastern Tanzania) but also with some programmes on the great region encompassing the African great lakes region (a programme on freshwater) and African mountains.

ARCOS is an associate member of GBIF since 2009 and I am the ARCOS node manager since 2013.

ARCOS runs a programme termed “ARCOS Biodiversity Information Management System – ARBIMS”, a programme with the aim to promote biodiversity data sharing and information exchange at regional level. Our goal is to empower policy makers and planners for informed decision-making through providing them with accurate information on the state of biodiversity and other natural resources in the region in a format that is simple and readily digestible.

We have established a platform (http://arbims.arcosnetwork.org) to help us reach this goal and this portal uses GBIF’s IPT to publish biodiversity data (occurrence, checklists, and in the near future sample-based data). We have several data publishers we work with from various countries in the Albertine Rift region and we will continue to mobilize others (both institutions and individual researchers) to join.

Our current project supported by BID aims at mobilizing data about key biodiversity areas to support the sustainable development process in the region. We are planning to pilot a citizen science initiative around occurrence data collection and also try to engage EIA authorities in Rwanda and Uganda with the objective to promote the sharing of data generated from EIA studies in these countries.

I will be contributing regularly to this group (I applied to be a mentor after all) and I hope to interact with many of you in the time to come.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch through my personal contact details below if necessary

With regards

Faustin Gashakamba

Director – Development, Information Systems

Albertine Rift Conservation Society

Tel: +250722023303 / +250783023303

Email: fgashakamba@arcosnetwork.org

Skype: fgashakamba

Coming on 17-20 October 2016: World Mountain Forum, Mbale, Uganda,

                                  Theme: "Mountains for Our Future."

For more details, click on the event logo above to browse the event’s website

                                                            #WMF_2016