Five Pacific Island projects selected to receive BID funding

The BID: Biodiversity Information for Development programme has entered a new stage as five new projects kick off in the Pacific Islands.

Collectively, the projects will receive €361,435 in funding from the European Union while leveraging just over €250,000 of co-funding from numerous other sources. Each of the five will apply its funding toward BID's goal of increasing the amount of biodiversity information available in the ‘ACP’ nations of sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Members of the project teams are developing skills in data mobilization, as well as discussing wider issues around sharing biodiversity data from the Pacific Islands region, during the joint workshop and regional meeting in Apia, Samoa, between 23 and 28 July, hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

The following projects have been selected for the BID programme's Pacific phase:

• Mobilizing Fiji’s macro-moth collection data to enhance knowledge and encourage biodiversity protection

  €5,000 grant | €4,000 co-funding

• Databasing and documenting the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium

  €60,000 grant | €60,000 co-funding

• VaBiDa: Gathering, sharing and mobilizing biodiversity data in Vanuatu

  €60,000 grant | €59,250 co-funding

• Capacity building and data mobilization for conservation and decision-making in the South Pacific

  €61,435 grant | €23,140 co-funding

• Regional and national alien and invasive species data mobilization and capacity building in the Pacific

  €175,000 grant | €103,952 co-funding

These projects join 30 more previously funded through the BID programme—22 in Africa, 8 in the Caribbean. A second and final round of projects in Africa will be selected from shortlisted candidates invited to submit proposals recently, with an announcement expected in October 2017.

This programme is funded by the European Union.