The Republic of Burundi has affirmed its commitment to promoting open data on biodiversity by joining GBIF as Voting Participant. Prosper Dodiko, Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock (MINEAGRIE) in Burundi signed the voluntary GBIF Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of the government, making the East African nation the 47th voting member of the GBIF network.
"The participation of Burundi in GBIF is of great importance in terms of global collaboration in the sharing of biodiversity data," said Hatungimana Berchmans, Director General of MINEAGRIE's Burundian Office for the Protection of the Environment (OBPE). "It will provide Burundian researchers with an opportunity to showcase their data and research."
The crest of the Nile-Congo watershed dividing the continent's two largest rivers traces Burundi's high plateau. The mountainous terrain of this landlocked equatorial nation supports a flora consisting of nearly 3,000 vascular plants, including many endemic high-elevation species. The country shares the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika with three countries—the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia, as well as a land border with Rwanda.
One national institution within MINEAGRIE already has experience sharing data into GBIF. The Institute of Agronomical Sciences of Burundi (ISABU) participated in a Tanzanian-led project funded through the Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) programme. Like those published by their project partners, ISABU's dataset features germplasm records for native African vegetables—indigenous plants that provide some of the most nutritious crops for human populations in rural and sparsely developed peri-urban areas.
But ISABU dataset's modest size belies its impact, having been used to contribute evidence for the findings of 77 peer-reviewed articles and three important global policy reports—two on agrobiodiversity conservation as well as the landmark Invasive Alien Species Assessment published in 2023 by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
"Burundi’s people depend on biodiversity to provide them with food, medicine and fuel from the country’s farms, fisheries and forests,” said Joe Miller, GBIF executive secretary. “By becoming part of the GBIF network and its communities of practice, Burundi has increased its capacity to support a homegrown cohort of individuals and institutions who can help sustain lives and livelihoods with better biodiversity data.”
The remaining 117,000 species occurrences about Burundi's biodiversity include more than 95,000 specimen records from 200-plus collections in 31 countries. Belgium's Meise Botanic Garden Herbarium is the largest single provider of records from Burundi.