The significant and unique biodiversity resources found in Madagascar face extreme pressure from anthropogenic activities including slash and burn agriculture and hunting. As the country’s most emblematic species, Madagascar’s 110 lemur species stand as a clear example of the biodiversity threat dynamic operating in Madagascar. Lemurs have garnered increased awareness within conservation and research circles of the growing threats experienced by lemur species, and captured a passionate international and national conservation community that has leveraged significant support for investment in research and field based conservation actions. Nevertheless, efforts to date have failed to reverse negative trends in lemur conservation status. Weak biodiversity information and access to knowledge on the part of stakeholders involved in conservation activities contribute to this failure. Specifically, the community lacks a robust mechanism to share knowledge and to create positive feedback loops among research, policy decisions, and on-the-ground conservation actions.

Following a technical meeting of more than 40 representatives from lemur conservation organizations in February 2016, supported by a planning grant from JRS, a consortium of local conservation partners – the Madagascar Biodiversity Fund (Fondation pour les Aires Protégées et la Biodiversité de Madagascar, FAPBM), Wildlife Conservation Society Madagascar (WCS) and the Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar (GERP) – developed a plan to address this problem by building the ‘Madagascar Lemurs Portal’.

The collaborative project will result in an online data portal, a clearinghouse for lemur data that will provide accessible information for a range of user groups, from casually-interested tourists, to managers and academics. The portal will comprise four main components, a species database, with occurrence data for all 110 species of lemur on Madagascar; a forum  to facilitate real-time exchange of information, data, and ideas among different user groups; a set of visualizations to aid non-technical users in learning about lemur conservation; and integration of a mobile app for data contribution via citizen science.

A steering committee will oversee development and implementation of the portal through the following activities:

1. Engage partners to help develop the portal and to supply data
2. Gather and validate data and information including species occurrence and ecological data, threat data, planned and ongoing conservation actions, publications and grey literature relevant to lemur conservation, and conservation and capacity-building tools
3. Develop the online forum, including identifying focus topics
4. Build a lemur database and portal
5. Develop downloadable visualizations and visualization tools
6. Grow user and contributor community through communication and outreach

The team will produce a technically and scientifically robust, user-friendly, open-access, tool accessible to a wide range of user groups. At the end of the project period, they plan to have:

• Engagement of 20 partners, to contribute and validate data
• Inclusion of 10,000 lemur occurrence records on all 110 species
• Registration of 500 users on site, half of which participate in the forum
• Visitation by 5,000 non-registered users
• Evidence of portal use including references in academic press, grey literature and social media

The project leaders envision that the Madagascar Lemurs Portal will become an essential tool in certain conservation evaluation and decision making processes (e.g., IUCN Red List assessments and donor and partner monitoring of protected area effectiveness); and that it continuously evolves with the addition of new data sources from users. Specifically, they hope that the portal contributes over the long-term in a direct and tangible way to improved lemur conservation.

Alihasina Rakotondramanana is a Project Officer at the Madagascar Biodiversity Fund (FAPBM). Since 2015, he has led small project related to lemur monitoring, natural resources management, and community management.  In 2017, he became a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, Madagascar Section. His willingness to promote lemur conservation through knowledge sharing has driven him to join this innovative project.

• The Madagascar Lemurs Portal website is currently available to the public containing comprehensive information on 110 lemur species and 8,000 species occurrences.
• A total of 12 MoUs have been finalized with partner organizations.
• Researchers, conservationists, and decision makers can share documents, relevant lemur scientific media, ask each other questions, and upload species occurrence data from within the portal.
• Over 130 people have been trained in various aspects of biodiversity informatics throughout Madagascar.

We are excited and a little nervous to see this project launch. We tried and failed five years ago to initiative a similar knowledge sharing platform for lemurs in Madagascar.  We learned that to create a knowledge portal to serve a community you need to engage a community to design the resource and to populate it with knowledge. We learned it takes an investment in our convening of partners and our investment in planning activities to do something that is complex both technically and in technology.  We hope that the second time’s a charm and that with an inclusive and broad partnership, the advancement of technology, and able leaders that Malagasy conservationists will create a Malagasy knowledge resource to protect Madagascar’s iconic and most endangered mammal.