This project mobilizes data about medicinal plants and multipurpose agroforestry plant species in Benin, strengthening the national network's capacity and promoting the use of these data in biodiversity conservation.
To achieve this goal, project partners will identify priority medicinal plants known to treat malaria and important agroforestry species in use in the country, while organizing workshops on data mobilization and data use. The project aims to publish 59,000 data records through GBIF.org and the GBIF Benin portal. In addition to national data, the project will also gather and publish relevant data held in collections in France, Netherlands and Belgium.
The project maps the distribution of targeted species and will suggest conservation strategies to policy makers during workshops on the conservation and sustainable use of these species.
Project Progress
An information and planning workshop was held to inform all the partners of the project's objectives and activities' implementation plan.
A workshop on capacity building in biodiversity data mobilization targeting biodiversity data holders and users in Benin was organized to increase mobilization of national biodiversity data and enhance capacity of main stakeholders.
With the agreement of national partners, a list of priority agroforesty and medicinal plants was achieved which can be accessed in the report below. Distribution maps and ecological niche models of targeted medicinal and agroforestry species have been created with a partnering organisation. Suggested strategies to protect and conserve targeted species will serve as a baseline for a forum discussion and will be developed using contributions from participants in upcoming workshops.
The project has seen the mobiliziation and publication of 17 datasets with a total of 61,524 georeferenced occurrence records on agroforestry and medicinal plants through GBIF.org. From these 17 datasets three checklists on renowned multipurpose agroforestry plant species used as staple food and income sources by Beninese populations and renowned plant species used to heal malaria in Benin have been derived and published. With this data there have been several reports and scientific publications.
The project has achieved distribution maps and ecological niche models on 11 species of which 5 were medicinal species and 6 agroforestry species. These maps and models of the targeted species are achieved in the context of global change and can be found in the final report on data use in the attachment below.
This programme is funded by the European Union.
