The BioTA Africa program, which will begin its fourth phase in 2009, is scheduled to expand to Angola, and researchers connected with the Biota-FAPESP program may have a central role in the networking necessary for this integration. In January, Marcos Aidar, a researcher at the Instituto de Botânica de São Paulo botanical institute, represented Biota-FAPESP on an expedition to Angola, the objective of which was to train students from the Agostinho Neto University, in Luanda, to start the survey on the biodiversity of the Angolan territory. According to Aidar, the expedition – which also included Namibia – included researchers from the South African National Biodiversity Institute/SANBI, the Polytechnic School of Namibia and from BioTA Africa. The BioTA Africa program, sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research/BMBF, brings together over 400 researchers from German and African institutions involved within a multidisciplinary network spread throughout the continent. In the southern region, the program has so far been implemented in South Africa and Namibia. The inclusion of Angola in BioTA Africa was prioritized because information on the local biodiversity is skimpy, mostly because of the 40-year long civil war that devastated the country. “In addition to transmitting part of the experience garnered by Biota-FAPESP, we also want to join the extension process of the African program to Angola, by participating in the networking between Germans , South Africans and Angolans,” Aidar told Agência FAPESP.
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