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To sustainably manage and protect their marine biodiversity, Pacific Island States have an appetite for open source geographic information systems and related planning tools. A new “cookbook”, developed by the MACBIO project, provides a free training hub and community of practice for spatial planning practitioners in the Pacific.

Based on the open-source application QGIS, the “QBook” training hub is a free, dynamic, MOODLE-based, on and offline learning platform that provides easy access to training materials for GIS beginners and practitioners, who are interested to increase their capacities and share their experience.

“An NGO working in Fiji presented a question on the QBook on how communities can best be empowered to map their own natural resources. We responded with a community-based mapping guide that has now been integrated and reaches a much wider audience through the QBook platform. The diversity of user cases on the QBook highlights the need and potential for constructive exchanges across sectors on planning challenges and solutions. Through close collaboration with a growing range of partner organisations and an increasing number of users, the QBook provides a lively platform for all users of spatial data applications throughout the   Pacific.

Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day, teach someone to fish and you feed him for a lifetime…”
-Lecturer and students of the University of the South Pacific

The QBook connects students and lecturers, regional agencies, NGOs, government departments and the private sector and allows beginning as well as experienced GIS practitioners to find and share solutions and “recipes” for a wide range of spatial data analysis and management situations. It offers regional and national solutions and scenarios and makes them relevant and relatable to its users.