ARCOS Network

ARCOS organised a visit to Mukura Forest involving staff from NAFA, ARECO, Districts of Rutsiro and Ngororero and ARCOS, Photo SK/ARCOS

From outside, the Forest looks healthy, Photo SK/ARCOS

Around the Forest, the Government is doing efforts of reafforestation, Photo SK/ARCOS

Outside the Forest, Communities grow their crops as normal, Photo SK/ARCOS

But as you get closer, the signs of mining at the edge of forest send already bad signals, Photo SK/ARCOS

At the edge of the forest, ARCOS, NAFA, ARECO and District Teams are shocked by enormous devastation of the forest, Photo SK/ARCOS

And the scale of destruction is big, Photo SK/ARCOS

The scale is very, very big, Photo SK/ARCOS

The Miners settle in Forest, causing so much forest destruction, Photo SK/ARCOS

Trees are cut down, Photo SK/ARCOS

Paths inside the forest are all over, Photo SK/ARCOS

They dig very deep indeed, Photo SK/ARCOS

And far inside the forest, Photo SK/ARCOS

And more areas are destroyed, Photo SK/ARCOS

It is a disaster, Photo SK/ARCOS

Few trees remain on the way, Photo SK/ARCOS

Miners completely settle inside, Photo SK/ARCOS

Some visitors cannot believe it, Photo SK/ARCOS

Everybody cannot believe it, Photo SK/ARCOS

The Forest is gone, the forest is going, Photo SK/ARCOS

Yes, the forest is gone. Photo SK/ARCOS

The team goes back to discuss what can be done, Photo SK/ARCOS

The wounds are so enormous, Photo SK/ARCOS

This is where miners have been storing water, Photo SK/ARCOS

Outside, future generations dont realise what is happening, Photo SK/ARCOS

And poor people continue to struggle as usual, Photo SK/ARCOS

ARCOS and its partners are now working towards the solution of this problem. Photo ARCOS

For more information, please contact:

ARCOS Executive Secretary, Dr Sam Kanyamibwa: skanyamibwa@arcosnetwork.org, or

ARCOS Programme Monitoring and Development Manager, Claudien Nsabagasani, cnsabagasani@arcosnetwork.org

ARCOS is pleased to share its Strategic Plan for the Period 2011-2015 with its partners.

Click here

19 December 2011: The UN Decade on Biodiversity was launched on 17 December 2011, in Kanazawa, Japan, in a ceremony organized by the UN University (UNU) in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment of Japan, Ishikawa Prefecture and Kanazawa City, and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The international launch of the Decade was preceded by regional launches in Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has declared the period 2011-2020 as the UN Decade on Biodiversity, to promote the implementation of the CBD Strategic Plan 2011-2020 and its overall vision of living in harmony with nature. With participation from UN agencies, CBD Parties and government representatives of Japan, the three-day event included a workshop on national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs). In his message delivered by Kiyotaka Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General, UN Department of Public Information (DPI), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on all Parties to the CBD and the other biodiversity-related conventions, as well as all members of the UN system, the private sector, civil society groups and individual citizens and consumers worldwide, to rally to the call of the UN Decade on Biodiversity.

Click here for CBD Press Release

15 December 2011: The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has developed a new biodiversity data publishing framework to encourage and facilitate the sharing of biodiversity data. The first and primary recommendation suggests that all data relevant to the understanding of biodiversity and to biodiversity conservation should be made freely, openly and effectively available.

The authors define a data publishing framework as an environment conducive to ensuring free and open access to the world’s primary biodiversity data. The 24 recommendations of the GBIF Data Publishing Framework Task Group are included in a special supplement of BMC Bioinformatics.

Some of the measures proposed by the task group have already been taken up by GBIF and others, including the publication of data papers to bring academic recognition to those publishing metadata to describe datasets. Other measures include services to monitor and publish use of data in a Data Usage Index, and a mechanism to ensure that all those involved in collecting, adding value to and publishing data are acknowledged in a single citation.

The authors of the framework conclude that implementation of the recommendations will “expedite the progress of archiving, curation, discovery and publishing of primary biodiversity data, because scientists and originators of data will realize the value and incentives for such efforts.”

Click here for GBIF Press Release 

14 December 2011: The meeting of the Mountain Focus Group convened on 14 December 2011, and sought to forge a common understanding on including mountain development in the preparatory process for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) and the Conference itself.

The meeting took place in New York, US, and was organized by the Mountain Partnership Secretariat (MPS), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Missions of Italy and Switzerland to the UN. Presentations were given on: outcomes from the Lucerne World Mountain Conference and its potential input to the UNCSD, the latest developments in the UNCSD preparatory process and ensuring the proper inclusion of mountain issues, and the role of the MPS leading up to the UNCSD.

In the discussion segment, participants addressed: the need to communicate both the challenges and benefits of mountains; approaches for outreach on mountain issues; potential types of partnership; and the sustainable development of mountains as a cross-cutting issue.

IISD RS Coverage of Meeting

A four-day training organised by ARCOS was concluded on Friday 16^th of December 2011, with 26 trainees awarded certificates in Biodiversity Informatics, Data Management and GIS. The event took place in Kigali and brought together professionals from different institutions partners to ARCOS from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. The training was led by ARCOS Regional Information Systems Manager, Zac Maritim, with contributions from GBIF Secretariat and GBIF Nodes in Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon.    

Trainees holding their certificates, Photo CN/ARCOS

Participants to the training committed to put to the good use the skills they acquired for a more effective conservation action in the Albertine Rift through networking and use of better data collection and sharing methods, through the Albertine Rift Data Management and GIS Group set up under the GBIF Community Group.

 “This was a great opportunity to meet as professionals from different backgrounds and countries” said Aline Njebarikanuye of the National Institute for Environment and Nature Conservation (INECN/Burundi); “the skills we gained here are not only practical but also life skills because GIS is now a growing and cross-cutting tool and we hope we are going to make a difference in our institutions” added the monitoring and evaluation coordinator at INECN.

As Climate Change Talks enter final stretch in Durban, ARCOS urges the governments meeting in Durban to show strong leadership and political will to reach ambitious outcome for people and the planet.

From Copenhagen to Cancun and now Africa in Durban, ARCOS continues to stress the urgency for actions to tackle the most important threat faced by the earth today. ARCOS is concerned that Durban negotiations are not addressing key issues. Governments need to agree on a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol and on a legally binding global agreement that includes all countries by 2015, and commit financial resources by creating the Green Climate Fund, the financial mechanism which will channel funds to developing countries to tackle climate change.

As in other montain ecosystems, the climate change impact is already happening and threatening community livelihoods and national ecosnomies in Africa, says ARCOS Executive Secretary in a Regional Meeting on Sustainable Development in African Mountain Regions, on the theme “Climate Change Impacts, Adaption and Development in Fragile Ecosystems” organised by the Mountain Partnership in Mbale, Uganda. In the Albertine Rift region, one of the globally important regions for biodiversity and ecosystems  services for human being, all the countries in the Albertine Rift region are experiencing floods, long period of droughts, etc.

ARCOS Position on Climate Change

UNFCCC and Durban Climate Conference

Description of the event:

The JRS foundation has awarded the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) a grant to build competence for biodiversity information systems in the Albertine Rift region. In the context of that project a Regional Advisory Committee for the Project is scheduled for Monday 12th December, followed by and a first 5-days training workshop, targeting to cover the following contents: Data integration, planning, design and testing. Data Acquisition and processing, network-based data and network-integrated data, acquisition and processing datasets, GIS and geo-referencing (species, long-term monitoring data, spatial data, documents, etc.).

The event will be organised in collaboration with the GBIF nodes in the region, with  GBIF representatives from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Cameroon contributing to the training.

Programme: 
Ckick here for the Advisory Committee Meeting Programme

Click here for the Training Workshop Programme

Number of participants and target audience: 
20 people. The target public are representatives from National Data Centres and ARCOS Partner institutions from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Contact information: 
Please contact Dr Sam Kanyamibwa (skanyamibwa AT arcosnetwork.org) if you have any questions about this event.

Venue: 
Chez Lando Hotel, Kigali, Rwanda.

Dates: 
12 December: Advisory Committee;

13-17 December 2011: Training Workshop

Status: 
Scheduled

Language: 
English/French

Resources:

• ARCOS website.

Speakers/Trainers:

ARCOS is pleased to announce the arrival of Mr Zachary Kimutai Maritim as the Regional Information Systems Manager. Zac has 10 years experience in GIS/RS Data and Information Management. He has been charged with the responsibility of overseeing data collection, its processing, storage and dissemination for the purposes of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to aid in decision-making for conservation efforts. Zachary has regional experience spanning several Eastern, Central and Southern African countries including DRC, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, etc.  He has implemented large enterprise Geodatabases under ArcGIS Server and SQL Server as well as Postgre SQL and comprising ArcSDE and Web Mapping. He has conducted training and supervision of field staff in different countries on Handheld and Differential GPS and Mobile GIS (ArcPAD), RTK GPS, Total Station data collection for species monitoring, socio-economic surveys, etc. He has been a member of a Prime-Ministerial Committee on the study and recommendation of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure for the Government of Rwanda in liaison with other Regional Institutions such as the Regional Centre for Resource Surveys and Mapping based in Kenya and Butare National University of Rwanda. Zachary is perfectly bilingual and/or multilingual speaking English, French and Swahili and several African languages including Kalenjin, Luo and a little Kinyarwanda. Zac started on 1st October 2011 and will be working partly, leading the Albertine Rift Regional Information System (ARBMIS) and particularly working with different partners and stakeholders, in the development of the Albertine Rift Regonal Biodiversity Portal, a new ARCOS initiative under funding by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation.

It is often difficult to know what has been achieved until one takes time to look back. The year 2010 was such a time for ARCOS, the year ARCOS celebrated its 15 years and reviewed its activities. Read more in this ARCOS Annual Report 2010.