New tools for capacity building in taxonomy and environment management: an application on mangrove species

The identification of species in South Asia, as many parts of the world, is a major handicap for implementing the necessary measures recommended by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The drastic reduction in the number of taxonomists throughout the world and the permanent loss of their knowledge have made the task of ecologists all the more difficult. In India, the IFP contribution in various networks and processes to establish a national strategy for the conservation of biological diversity (NBSAP) allowed us to confirm a strong demand in this domain for: training, tools for training, diffusion of information, as well as new tools for capacity-building in taxonomy and environment, in conformity with the recommendations of the "Global Taxonomy Initiative" of the CBD secretariat. The objective of this computer-aided identification is to provide scientists working on subjects related to biological diversity with a software to help them to identify mangrove species In spite of missing information and, within certain limits, errors, and which can provide information as required by user. This is done entirely graphically by constituting an "Identikit picture". After identification, the user can access a descriptive file of the species where botanical terms are defined in a hypertext. The software, in this version, is able to identify about 60 species of mangroves (proper and associates) of South India and Sri Lanka. Besides botanical, ecological and geographical data, it will also include information on the multiple uses of these species by the local population. Devoted to non-specialists, it is expected to serve capacity-building for training and selftraining.