Rationale For Msc In Biodiversity Informatics

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While there are many efforts, in Malawi, to document the country's biological diversity (i.e. thesis, museum, herbarium, EIA reports, etc), much of the data remains in grey reports or collections, inaccessible to users. As a result, there are few biodiversity related policies that make use of these data. There are also very few efforts to analyse long term data to understand trends and impacts of different policies/management strategies. This contributes to unnecessary spending of finances resulting from collection of multiple data in the same area by different persons/ teams or institutions simply because they do not know that recent data in their subject area already exists.

Malawi has been unable to do national species assessments for the majority of its biodiversity due to the lack of skills and also the availability of the data. A recent IUCN project seen some fresh water species status assessed in 2019. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife in 2017 published the regulations for Protected and Endangered species for Malawi. The majority of the species that are listed in this document were simply suggested by experts in the various fields and not based on any data analysis. The current national redlistspecies red list assessment for a sellectionselection of plant species is over 20 years old and was also done by international experts. The Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM) is currently leading an initiative to assess Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) in Malawi, this process also requires the availability of biodiversity data. These efforts to conserve Malawi's biodiversity show that there is need for more data to be mobilized and for it to be easily accessible and used for the required information products.

This programme will address this problem by building capacity at post graduate level in mobilising data, making that data easily accessible and using it in decision making. Malawi reports on its progress in implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs). For the goals on ‘Life on Land’ and ‘Life on water’ it is important to have a robust flow of biodiversity data. In 2018 the Biodiversity Information Management Forum (BIMF) was launched in Malawi providing a platform for data holders and users to come together and share their needs. The BIMF has led to the creation of a preliminary list of datasets that are available for mobilisation and also possible policies/activities that need to be informed by data. This programme will complement the BIMFs efforts by including the mobilisation of these data sets as part of its student activities. The Masters in Biodiversity Informatics will produce scientists who will provide leadership and necessary sophisticated skills in facility laboratories in biodiversity and informatics, perform research and applying it for the preservation and sustainable development of the biodiversity