The African Pollen Database is an international network, which supports the development of scientific research in Africa in the field of past environmental and climate change. Principle and basis for the functioning of the African Pollen Database have been adopted during a meeting organized with this purpose at Bierville (France) in 1996 [PDF] and grouping scientists involved in African and Malagasy palynology. The long-term objective of the APD is to collect pollen data, place them at the disposal of the whole scientific community, to archive the information for future generations of researchers and to promote international scientific cooperation. It has been initiated in the frame of research projects funded by the European Union as part of the PMIP project. Then, INCO-DC, ENRICH, UNESCO-IGCP, and finally CNRS funded the network, allowing for the organization of meetings successively held at Johannesburg (1997) [PDF], Kew (1998) [PDF], Durban (1999) [PDF], Nanjing (2000) [PDF], Nairobi (2001) [PDF], Casablanca (2002) [PDF], Granada (2004), and Bloemfontein (2005) [PDF], and for the organization of workshops and training courses held at Toulouse (1999) [PDF] and Marseilles (2001) [PDF].

Strong relationships exist between the African Pollen Database and the other regional pollen databases, mainly the European one (EPD), which stores data from Northern, Mediterranean, Africa. Joint meetings are regularly organized between these two databases in order to strengthen scientific exchanges along the IGBP-PAGES PEP III transect. Of course, APD collaborates with the Global Pollen Database (GPD).

The African Pollen Database is developed and maintained by Medias-France. Data are also available from the World Data Center of Paleoclimatology (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/apd.html) and the Pan-African START Secretariat (Nairobi) (http://pass.uonbi.ac.ke)

A.-M. Lézine
APD coordinator

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Last updated $Date: 2005/03/08 09:28:13 $