OBAPAO: a repository of data and information on biodiversity and protected areas in West Africa
The BIOPAMA Program, an initiative funded by the European Union, aims to build a solid information base for decision-making on protected areas and biodiversity in 79 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States. Thus, at this West Africa Regional Reference Information System (RRIS), you will find maps, reports, data and other relevant information on the status of biodiversity and protected areas that you can download and use as needed. A wide range of environmental themes associated with related topics in biodiversity conservation and natural resource management are covered.
The basic development is carried out by the Centre de Suivi Ecologique (Dakar, SENEGAL), leader of the OBAPAO Consortium, the Regional Marine Centre (University of GHANA), the AGRHYMET Regional Centre (Niamey, NIGER) and RAMPAO (Dakar, SENEGAL), with the support of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the West and Central Africa Regional Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) The West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) is the institutional host of the Observatory for Biodiversity and Protected Areas in West Africa (OBAPAO) and all West African countries are beneficiaries. Other partners include: UNEP-WCMC, Green List initiatives, MANGROVES, MOLOA, PAPBio, PAPFor, WACA, GMES&Africa, etc.
Based on GeoNode technology to help share important data, this repository, which is intended to be sustainable and adapted to the needs of West African states, is part of the BIOPAMA reference information system. For the record, the BIOPAMA project began in July 2011 and is now in its second phase, which extends to 2023. This new repository through different modules, will allow to: i) track progress in achieving conservation goals, ii) assess the performance of protected areas, iii) analyze conservation scenarios or simply browse facts, figures and maps. You can learn more about BIOPAMA on the main project page www.biopama.org.
