National Biodiversity Data Centre Strategic Plan 2024-2028

The National Biodiversity Data Centre is delighted to launch its first Strategic Plan for 2024 – 2028.

This ambitious plan outlines the Data Centre’s core objectives over the next five years, with the aim of creating an Ireland where biodiversity is understood, appreciated, and valued, and decisions that impact on biodiversity are informed by evidence and knowledge.

Ireland is in the midst of a biodiversity emergency. The evidence shows that the complexity of our ecosystems is declining, and many species found in our country are endangered or under threat of extinction. Of the 3,466 species assessed under the Red List conservation assessment process, almost 24% are considered under threat of extinction. This is the background context for the work of the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

For over 15 years, the National Biodiversity Data Centre has been a core component of Ireland’s national heritage infrastructure. Building on previous success, the Strategic Plan includes objectives for improving knowledge on Ireland’s biodiversity, assisting better evidence-based actions for biodiversity conservation and restoration, and promoting the use of biodiversity data for science and decision-making. Achieving these objectives will be essential supporting services to assist the State in addressing the challenge of reversing biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation.

Already the National Biodiversity Data Centre had demonstrated its success in maintaining a large network of volunteer surveyors and recorders.  It manages a network of volunteers who monitor biodiversity at over 1,700 sites, providing valuable insights into how biodiversity is changing. This is a huge, and valuable contribution that volunteers make, and they make this huge contribution because they value biodiversity and feel passionate about its conservation.

Participating in biodiversity can be difficult. Nevertheless, through the engagement work done by the National Biodiversity Data Centre in 2023 it encouraged more than 8,000 recorders to submit over 160,000 sightings of biodiversity to the National Biodiversity Data Centre. In a small country like Ireland this is a remarkable level of active engagement.

The National Biodiversity Dat, the Centre also serves as Ireland’s node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the world’s largest biodiversity database, ensuring that Ireland is connected to a global network of partners working to make data on global biodiversity freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world.

Following a decision of Government, the National Biodiversity Data Centre, which operated for many years as a programme funded by the Heritage Council, was established as a Company Limited by Guarantee in December 2022. The Centre’s Board of Directors is chaired by John McCarthy, a former Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Having a clear separate governance structure will greatly assist the future growth and further development of the National Biodiversity Data Centre so that it is better placed to support the State’s efforts to address the challenge of biodiversity loss.

The Board was very pleased that Malcolm Noonan, T.D. Minister for State for Nature, Heritage & Electoral Reform at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage launched the Strategic Plan on Friday, 2nd February 2024, at an event in Kilkenny.