Snoeks, J.,  Musschoot, T.,  Geelhand de Merxem, D. & Boden, G. 2015. ‘FishBase for Africa: data, research and training’. 13th FishBase Symposium - FishBase and SeaLifeBase for Teaching and Research in Aquatic Science. Book of abstracts. Los Baños : FishBase Information and Research Group, Inc., 41.

Conference abstract

Within the FishBase Consortium, the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren is responsible for data on African freshwater fishes. These activities are part of a larger FishBase for Africa programme, supported by a framework agreement between the Museum and the Belgian Development Cooperation. Within this programme, the team is keeping the information on African fishes up to date. In addition, the programme includes a major capacity building training component. Every year, and alternatingly in English or French, an intensive three months training course on FishBase and Fish Taxonomy is organised for five selected African scientists. Follow-up visits are also organised to complete a case study. As such, 55 ichthyologists from many parts of Africa, have already been trained. A new initiative has recently started, focussing on a small-scale, FishBase training programme to be executed with local partners in the region. Furthermore, since a few years, the collaboration with IUCN has been strengthened in an effort to bring the taxonomic backbones of both the IUCN database and FishBase in line and to facilitate red list assessments.