Ghana migrates information from old CBD Clearing-House Mechanism to bioland tool

Ghana has successfully migrated its information from the old Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Clearing-House Mechanism (CHM) website to the new Bioland Tool.The Bioland tool is an online platform developed by the CBD to facilitate the exchange of information by parties to the convention.Its objective is to have all national (parties) CHM websites running under Bioland and hosted on the CBD server to facilitate interoperability and collaboration among all CBD parties.Dr Peter Dery, the Director of Environment, at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) told the Ghana News Agency that the migration was very important to secure Ghana's data.He said with the support of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), all outdated information, including pictures had been updated, with captions to reflect real-time biodiversity in the country.Dr Dery stated that the platform was a hub that housed all reports, research and any form of data on biodiversity for providers as well as users.He noted that, under the project, a comprehensive assessment of Ghana's biodiversity ecosystem, with the goal of developing business models for intragovernmental and inter-agency cooperation on the exchange of biodiversity information had been undertaken.That, he said, was to identify key stakeholders and existing information-sharing mechanisms and international best practices and frameworks.Mr Raymond Owusu-Achiaw, a consultant on the project, said the migration would help the country during the reporting of international commitment, including the recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.'This platform will be fed with project implementations and their results from both state and non-state actors. It will have the copious evidence and people elsewhere can verify data put out,' he said.Mr Prince James Quarcoo, the Project Coordinator, said the new platform had a map of Ghana, highlighted biodiversity hotspots on the front page, with an enhanced layout to make it user-friendly.He said the new platform showed protected areas, threatened and invasive species, and environmental issues of concern, which required attention and the socio-economic status of local communities.The platform, he said, featured a section for news.Mr Quarcoo, who is also the Head of Information Communication Technology at MESTI, said the Ministry would officially inform the CBD Secretariat of the endorsement of the platform by the National Biodiversity Committee and Ghana.Source: Ghana News Agency