Experts believed Agriculture and biodiversity go hand in hand. Developed by humans approximately 12,000 years ago, agriculture harnesses all dimensions of biodiversity from genes and landscapes to the capacity for biomass production and services.

However the number of species contributing to the world’s food has been reduced in favor of the most productive species which has led to major changes in the environments used for their production.

Scientists began popularizing the biodiversity concept in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro with focus on ecological diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity.

It was also in 1992 that the Convention on Biological Diversity was signed, the first text of international law to define biological diversity and recognize it as a value that States must protect.

It was defined as the variability among living organisms from all sources including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are par.

It is upon this background that scientists at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFRRI) jointly with those at the National Environment Management Authority and Makerere University college of Natural Resources came up with the idea of setting up website portal to provide data about all fish species in all the water bodies in the country.

A portal is a web-based platform that collects information from different sources into a single user interface and presents users with the most relevant information for their context.

Increasing capacity for conservation of threatened fish species through data mobilization

The Director Naro Dr Ambrose Agona during the launch of the portal in Kampala noted that effective conservation of biodiversity planning depends on the existence of reliable data being available on the status and distribution of species.

“A huge amount of data that document spatial and temporal patterns of fish diversity in Uganda are not utilized fully. This is because they are accessible almost solely to scientists at the data holder institutions or individual scientists actively involved in monitoring and management of biodiversity data and is in formats which are technically unusable by other researchers, conservationists and policy makers. Inevitably these rich fish biodiversity data make little or no impact in terms of informing conservation policies. The goal of this project is to increase capacity for conservation of threatened fish species through data mobilization and training,” he noted.

He contends that the specific objective of this initiative is to mobilize data on fish records from Uganda’s aquatic systems including lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands as well as to identify and train scientists active in monitoring and management of fish biodiversity data in the use of data publishing tools and create awareness among policy makers in use of biodiversity information for decision making.

Considering all species in Uganda whose conservation status has been assessed by IUCN it is estimated that fish is the most threatened of all aquatic taxa, with the highest number of threatened species (49 species), forming 30% of all threatened species

Monique Akullo Senior Internal Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at NEMA noted that there is a challenge of declining fish species in the country due to over harvesting therefore this portal has come in timely

To her it is important to maintain and conserve biodiversity for the future generation and this means allocating increased resources in order for scientists to come up with such innovations which can help benefit the end users

Giving the statistical figure, she notes that government gives 15 billion every fiscal year for biodiversity conservation which is not enough.

“We need more funds to help in innovating digital technologies which can help in diversification of information to the local communities as beneficiaries,”

How the portal was developed and how it operates

Ms Agness Nabuufu an IT specialist at NaFIRRI who has been part of the team in setting up the website explaining to Seeds of God about modalities of the portal notes that the website contains data sets about all fish species in the country.

The first step to follow is to click on the link of the portal and it will open with various sub set topics on the menu.

Someone searching for information has to click on the search engine within the website. If someone is looking for information about tilapia species which is breading in Lake Victoria, you type the necessary topic and it will take you to the information section.

There will be the English name of the fish, the scientific name and the name in some of the major local languages in the country

One will be able to access information about the breeding behavior of a specific fish, in which water body is it found and which part of the country is the water body located.

The portal has an administrator at the department of IT in NaFIRRI who will                                    be controlling what can be included in the site. This is because apart from the scientists at NaFIRRI being in position to feed information in the portal, other people are welcome to feed such useful data.

For those wishing to feed information, they will have to open an account and after being verified by the administrator they will be able to make their contribution. If the information is genuine the administrator will allow the version to be uploaded but if it found not to be sense, then such information will be deleted from the setting.

There provision for someone to log in as an individual or as an Institution. Those who go search information say students and other users have the liberty to do so and it free of charge.

Once you have clicked on the search engine, you will availed information about the fish species of your choice will.

The website is also meant to serve IT personnel who wish to use some of its functionalities for setting up their own APP. This means they will have to request the administrator to avail them with the necessary application programme

Mr Vianny Natugonza one of the IT technicians at the Institute noted that the Freshwater portal is designed in such a way that data updates can done promptly by the scientists specialized in fish breeding.

For those who obtained some information from the site and include it in their publication, it is only prudent enough to credit the Author

Those expected to share information and any other form of data include those involved in any form of biodiversity conservation, experts with expertise in best agronomy practices in fish farming, those with information on water quality including farmers who have succeeded in one way or the other in their farming initiative.

People can also access information on a particular fish species by going to the Photo Gallery and clicking on the picture of a particular fish, they will get all the information they want.

Information on how to protect endangered fish species  

Mr Anthony Basoma a scientists at NaFIRRI giving a case-study on freshwater biodiversity data use in conservation planning, a novel conservation priority index for Uganda explained that the country’s aquatic ecosystems make a significant part of the surface area, with open waters and wetlands covering 41743.2 km2

It comprise five major lakes namely Victoria, Kyoga, Albert, Edward and George and over 160 small lakes supporting diverse aquatic species including fish.

Most estimates indicate presence of 501-600 fish species in the country with most of these estimates based on scattered species inventories, a considerable number of fish species undescribed and some aquatic ecosystems not frequently monitored.

He said according to the list, fish species in Uganda are distributed among 21 families and 49 genera. The family Cichlidae is the most diverse with about 66.4% of all fish species, followed by Cyprinidae with about 10%.

Most of the fish species in the country are native with only a few species such as Oreochromis mossambicus, O. spilurus, Coptodon rendalli, Cyprinus carpio, Esox lucius , Poecilia reticulate , Oncorhynchus mykiss (Salmonidae) being introduced.

The scientists have devised means of assessing the water quality by calculating the surface area of a particular. This is in case one wants to conserve the water body for better breeding of fish species

The fish has to be conserved in water body which is not polluted to avoid the species from being endangered. According to their calculation it is less costly to conserve a small water body like Lake Wamala compared to Lake Victoria because its surface area is huge.

When conserving Lake Victoria, one has to put in mind to conserve the water surface in the three countries where the lake exists

So far a dataset of over 3,000 fish species occurrence points and information on abundance has been published as of January, 2019 and 100 photos fish species are available on the portal