Biodiversity Information

CEDaR

The Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR) was established in 1995 by the Ulster Museum, with support from the Environment and Heritage Service - now Northern Ireland Environment Agency (DoE NI), as the Local Records Centre for Northern Ireland.

The CEDaR project is a partnership between the Ulster Museum, NIEA and the Recording Community throughout Northern Ireland. The core objective of CEDaR is to store information related to the geology and distribution of the flora and fauna within Northern Ireland and its coastal waters and make this data available.

Computerised datasets held by CEDaR include:

• NI Vascular Plants database
• NI Mammal Survey data
• NI Littoral and Sublittoral data
• Butterflies and Moths data
• Birds data
• A range of Invertebrate datasets
• Fungi data

CEDaR is accepted as the focal point for the collation and storage of environmental information in Northern Ireland. The achievements of the project have been recognised recently by the consortium developing the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) in the United Kingdom.

National Biodiversity Network

The National Biodiversity Network is a union of organisations that are working together to create an information network of biodiversity data that is accessible through the Internet. By providing easy access to the information people need about wildlife, wise and informed decisions can be made to ensure our natural environment is diverse, rich and sustainable now and for future generations.

NBN projects include:

• Gateway - The NBN gateway provides on-line direct access to NBN data sources. It is used in the same way as a normal search engine to help you find biodiversity information, which has been published on the websites of NBN partners.
• Recorder 2002 - is a powerful piece of biological recording software, designed so that a wide range of users in the recording community can use a single standard system to manage their data.
• Linking Local Records Centres - Linking Local Record Centres will act as local data custodians within the NBN, meeting local user needs by bringing together national and local sources of data and providing the key local link in the network.