The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) Programme is currently soliciting Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from organisations actively involved in managing protected areas at the national level and needing assistance in conducting data management workshops/trainings.

The Caribbean Observatory for Protected Areas and Biodiversity, one of the BIOPAMA programme components in this region, is building on regional and global efforts for collecting data, directly from the ground, from national services, and from international institutions holding relevant information on biodiversity, pressures and threats. The Caribbean Observatory has the general mandate of ensuring the awareness and effective buy-in for the conservation of biodiversity by political institutions. It hosts a node for a Regional Reference Information System (RRIS), which works as a platform to facilitate exchange of data/information and implement relevant capacity building initiatives for the region among decision makers and managers of protected areas.

The BIOPAMA programme intends to support a maximum of five (5) workshops/trainings in the Caribbean region. The data and/or information generated will ultimately feed into the BIOPAMA Regional Reference Information System and must accompany comprehensive documentation of data quality and source following existing open data standards. 

Eligible organisations are governmental, non-governmental and private sector entities involved in protected area management from one of the 15 Caribbean member nations of the Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific Group (ACP) that are involved in the BIOPAMA programme: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Expression of Interest must be submitted to The Caribbean Observatory, BIOPAMA Caribbean Programme, CERMES, UWI, Cave Hill campus, St. Michael, Barbados. These must be received no later than Friday 10th April, 2015. 

Read the full Call for Expression of Interest and learn how to apply here. For Spanish click here.