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There is a growing interest in academia to provide biodiversity data to both the scientific community and the public. We present an internet database of the terrestrial lichens, bryophytes, vascular plants, molluscs, arthropods, vertebrates and coastal invertebrates of the Azores archipelago (Portugal, North Atlantic): the Azorean Biodiversity Portal (ABP, http://www.azoresbioportal.angra.uac.pt/). This is a unique resource for fundamental research in systematics, biodiversity, education and conservation management. The ABP was based on a regional species database (ATLANTIS), comprised of grid-based spatial incidence information for c. 5000 species. Most of the data rely on a comprehensive literature survey (dating back to the 19th century) as well as unpublished records from recent field surveys in the Azores. The ABP disseminates the ATLANTIS database to the public, allowing universal, unrestricted access to much of its data. Complementarily, the ABP includes additional information of interest to the general public (e.g. literature on Macaronesian biodiversity) together with images from collections and/or live specimens for many species. In this contribution we explain the implementation of a regional biodiversity database, its architecture, achievements and outcomes, strengths and limitations; we further include a number of suggestions in order to implement similar initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multi-voice script highlights the process of five years of research with coastal fishing communities in the Azores islands of Portugal. Initially, we used photo elicitation and focus groups to invite people to speak about the sea and all the deep, complex and sometimes contradictory meanings that it may have. In later years, the researchers sought environmental justice within everyday processes, using deep ethnographic and autobiographic-narrative inquiry which led to participation in learning about - as well as supporting - collaborations between fishers, scientists and policy makers. The text is constructed via arts-informed research methodology and consists of two parallel, creative narratives, intermittently interrupted by a visual narrative. This work calls for looking at the sea through new eyes, hearing with new ears, feeling differently and awakening to the possibility of knowing the sea in unfamiliar ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]