The National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI) held a symposium at the African Hotel to take stock of an end project titled; Unlocking Uganda’s freshwater biodiversity data for sustainable development. This project led to the development of a national fish biodiversity portal.   The event that was held at Hotel Africana was attended by a cross section of stakeholders including academia, policy, scientists and media.

Mrs Joyce Lwaput the director of fisheries resources at MAAIF who was the chief guest during the event said, who was happy that the portal would fill the gap on fish and aquaculture data and information access. Unlike in the past where scientists would rush to publish in international journals only making it hard for Ugandans to access information from research.  She went on to say that many people don’t understand what bio divest means and was glad to see many stakeholders across the divide present.

Fisheries plays a role in the livelihoods of many people, the climate as a big generator of forex in this country after coffee. Fish is a priority commodity in NDP 3. Research is the first arm of fisheries management because without it, there is no information to guide policy and the directorate of fisheries has been working closely with NaFIRRI scientists to facilitate, linkages are guided by current fisheries.

Dr Justus Ruteseire the director corporate services who represented the deputy director general Research Coordination in his remarks said, 

The portal that has information on all fish biodiversity in Uganda is available on fishbiodiveristy.go.ug and was established in collaboration between National Fisheries resources research institute, 

The portal provides data, photos and names of all fish in Uganda, conservation threat categories amongst other information.