Building research capacity for biodiversity conservation and science policy linkages in Rwanda

I will introduce the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management (CoEB), a national clearing house for data and information on biodiversity and natural resources for Rwanda and the region, and a hub for capacity building and knowledge generation on biodiversity conservation and natural resources management.  The Center functions as a consortium of governmental and non-governmental institutions called nodes, coordinated by the central hub office at University of Rwanda since 2017.  The Center collaborates with its nodes and partners to produce firsthand knowledge and plays a catalytic, coordinating role to ensure sharing of scientific knowledge, skills and expertise. It was recently designated as a UNESCO Category 2 Center and will work regionally to promote the understanding, monitoring and cataloguing of biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and climate change impacts and adaptation, and science-policy linkages.  The Center is especially interested in developing south-south partnerships and collaborations for research and research capacity building in support of mutual goals.

About the Speaker

Beth Kaplin is a biodiversity conservation scientist serving as the first Director of the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity & Natural Resource Management (CoEB) at University of Rwanda (UR) since 2017.  This is a relatively new knowledge management research center with UNESCO Category 2 Center status aimed at contributing science to policy.  Beth is a Professor of Conservation Science at UR where she supervises BSc, MSc and PhD students. She is an affiliated Research Professor in the School for the Environment at University of Massachusetts-Boston.   She serves as 2023 Past-President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.  She received her BSc in wildlife biology from Colorado State University, and MSc and PhD in Zoology from University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 2006 to 2015, she raised over one million USD from the MacArthur Foundation for National University of Rwanda to develop BSc and MSc programs in biodiversity conservation which put the institution on the map for conservation biology training. She also created the Regional Network for Conservation Educators in the Albertine Rift to support and empower conservation scientists in Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Tanzania, and Uganda with MacArthur Foundation support.  Beth maintains a research program with her students on tropical forest ecology, seed dispersal, primate ecology, protected areas conservation, ecosystem services, climate adaptation, and human-wildlife interactions that began in 1990 when she first came to do research in Nyungwe forest, Rwanda. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and serves on several journal editorial boards.  Under her direction, the CoEB raises ~USD$ 2 million annually in externally raised grants for research and projects, and she oversees the revitalization and digitization of the National Herbarium of Rwanda which holds over 20,000 specimens. Kaplin has focused her career on the role of higher education in building capacity for biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation research in Africa.