About SpeciesRadar
SpeciesRadar is a biodiversity intelligence platform providing open access to conservation data for researchers, policymakers, educators, and the public. We aggregate species data from authoritative sources — including the IUCN Red List, GBIF, and national red list databases — into a single, accessible interface.
Our Mission
Global biodiversity data is scattered across dozens of databases, government reports, and academic publications. SpeciesRadar brings this information together into one platform — making it searchable, comparable, and actionable. Our goal is to lower the barrier to accessing conservation intelligence, so that anyone working to protect biodiversity has the data they need.
Co-founders
Dr Hem Sagar Baral
Co-founder & Scientific Director
Dr Baral is one of Nepal's foremost conservation biologists with a PhD in wildlife biology. He has spent over four decades documenting knowledge on wildlife at species and ecosystems level in the Himalaya and wider region.
He is credited with the organisational growth of BirdLife Nepal partner Bird Conservation Nepal and the Zoological Society of London's Nepal office during his tenure as the Team Leader of both these institutions. He also founded Himalayan Nature, AutismCare Nepal Society, Nepalese Ornithological Union, Kosi Bird Observatory and a few others. He initiated successful operations such as community-managed vulture restaurants in Nepal, Special Conservation Sites, Trees for Tomorrow, the Brian Houghton Hodgson Award for Nature Conservation, and the Peter Byrne Fellowship Program, to name a few. He is also the founding editor of Danphe and Ibisbill — the bulletins of Bird Conservation Nepal.
He managed and contributed to all of Nepal's national red lists on birds and mammals, produced bilingual field guides on the mammals of Nepal, a Nepali-language field guide on the birds of Nepal, and is co-author of several books including Birds of Nepal, Important Bird Areas in Nepal, Natural History of Lumbini Farmscape, and Nepal's Forest Birds, to name a few.
Dr Baral is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, Australia, and is currently affiliated with the Snow Leopard Trust. You can follow his work on X @WorshipNature.
Tara Prakash Lama
Co-founder & Platform Builder
Tara brings a rare combination of field conservation experience, technical expertise, and entrepreneurial depth to SpeciesRadar. He studied forestry in Nepal and worked as a naturalist at Chitwan National Park before moving to the United States to study information technology and build a career in software development.
Tara serves as International VP and Patron of Himalayan Nature, and is a Patron of Bird Conservation Nepal. Alongside his lifelong conservation commitment, he has run parallel careers in software and business operations — including 17 years as a Bakers Delight franchise operator in Australia.
He designed and built the SpeciesRadar technical platform — the species profiling engine, country dashboards, national red list comparison system, and citizen science infrastructure — as part of a broader portfolio of data intelligence platforms across conservation, health, government, and commercial sectors.
Platform Portfolio
- SpeciesRadar — biodiversity intelligence across 200+ countries
- MoringaBase — 9,000+ peer-reviewed moringa studies
- AutismInsights — autism research and NDIS navigation
- FranchiseInsights — 288+ Australian franchise brand reports
- Lustrumo — jewellery price intelligence across 22 retailers
- LandInsightPro — Murray–Darling Basin farmland & water intelligence
- civroDA — development application tracking & approval prediction
Data & Approach
All conservation status data on SpeciesRadar is sourced from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), national red list databases, and published government assessments. Every data point includes source attribution.
For a detailed description of our data pipeline, quality assurance processes, and known limitations, see our Methodology page. For information on citing SpeciesRadar in academic work, see our Terms & Citation Guide.
Open & Supported
SpeciesRadar is a free public biodiversity intelligence platform sustained through conservation grants, institutional partnerships, and community support.