As part of the Belgium-Mauritania Mentoring Programme, a two days GBIF Workshop was held in Nouakchott, Mauritania.

22 participants from various institutions, ministries, universities and national parks attend this meeting at the Ecole Normale Supérieure that was designated by Mauritania as the National GBIF Node, also known as MrBIF.

Presentations ran over various topics : the GBIF network, Data Publication Software (IPT and TAPIR), the Mauritanian MrBIF Node, and the National Herbarium of Mauritania (HNM).

This first approach of GBIF mission, infrastructure and ambition was also a great opportunity for all participants to share their vision and concerns on Biodiversity Data Exchange within the country.

The Mauritanian Data Portal (MDP) was officially launched and the first Mauritanian dataset (HNM) has been published to GBIF.

MDP is a customized version of the Belgian Data Portal (BDP) that has been launched in september 2009.

Besides the visit of institutions, we were received by The Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, who assured us of the support of its department for the activities we want to set up.

Finally, the baselines of a 18 months action plan were drawn to strengthen the establishement of the MrBIF.

Baba Ainina, MrBIF NodeManager
Andre Heughebaert, BeBIF NodeManager