Biodiversity Informatics Symposium

The symposium brought together researchers, managers and practitioners from across South Africa and abroad, with expertise in a wide range of fields including conservation, ecology, information science, information technology, mathematics and statistics.

Overall, the symposium was an important first step in moving the field of biodiversity informatics in South Africa forward. It allowed many important role-players the first opportunity to meet one another and to start building a community of practice around biodiversity informatics. Participants felt that future engagements of this type should be encouraged. They are eager to participate in these, as well as projects and collaborations that address some of the issues raised at the workshop. Condensing all symposium presentations into a word cloud (left), illustrates the urgent need to build capacity, encourage data sharing, support monitoring and biodiversity conservation programmes, centralise data access and services for integrative reporting.

Venue: The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) 

Date: 28-30 November 2022