Heritage Council

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The Heritage Council seeks to protect and enhance the richness, quality and diversity of our national heritage for everyone. It works with its partners, particularly at local level, to increase awareness of our national heritage.

The National Biodiversity Data Centre

The National Biodiversity Data Centre was established in January 2007 as a Centre of Research Excellence on Ireland’s flora and fauna. Based at Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, the Centre is an initiative of the Heritage Council and is funded by the Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government. The contract for running of the Centre for a five-year period has been awarded to Compass Informatics.

Ireland, along with its EU partners, has agreed a target to halt biodiversity loss by 2010. If the loss of biodiversity is to be halted, the first stage is to identify what we have, where it occurs, and how its status is changing over time.

The responsibility of the Data Centre is to mainstream the use of biological data, provide a national strategic focus for data collection, and ensure that comprehensive and reliable data are available to inform public policy and for use by researchers and conservationists.

The Data Centre will work to make data on Ireland’s biological diversity available for the following specific uses:

The implementation of international conventions and European directives
Monitoring programmes
Distribution mapping & modelling
Publications
Future scientific programmes
Documentation of ecological and bio-geographical information

Contact details
The National Biodiversity Data Centre
Beechfield House
WIT West Campus
Carriganore
Waterford
Phone: 051 306 240
Email:info@biodiversityireland.ie
www.biodiversityireland.ie