International Groups, Global Organizations, World Regions

(ECP and CTSP members, sites of interest for mapping/GIS, scholarly papers and ESRI Conference Proceedings, and sites with public conservation and GIS data for downloading)

Sites of interest for mapping/GIS

(Legend: CTSP sites are coded "c" plus the year of the grant, (cs=software, cm=mac), ECP grantees are coded "e". Many groups, especially newer grantees, do not yet have their own sites and are colored green. Other new groups may be described or supported by other sites)

International Conservation & Sustainable Development

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). (P.O. BOX 6596, JKPWB Jakarta 10065 Indonesia, Tel:+62-251-622-622 Fax:+62-251-622-100 Email:cifor@cgiar.org Director General: Dr. Jeffrey Sayer.) "CIFOR was established under the CGIAR system in response to global concerns about the social, environmental and economic consequences of loss and degradation of forests. It operates through a series of highly decentralized partnerships with key institutions and/or individuals throughout the developing and industrialized worlds." FREE ONLINE PUBLICATIONS and Downloadable ArcView Data: "CEC publications provide information about the environment in North America as well as the CEC's work under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). The CEC's publications policy is based on principles of openness and transparency and is designed to reflect a commitment to greater public access to environmental information in North America. For that reason, all publications are available here without cost in full-text, electronic versions. Bound hardcopy versions can also be ordered for a fee." Subject Areas, Environmental Conservation, Protecting Human Health and the Environment, Environment, Trade and Economy, Enforcement Cooperation and Law.

Commission on Environmental Cooperation. (393 rue St-Jacques Ouest, bureau 200, Montréal (Québec) H2Y 1N9, Canada Tel: (514) 350-4300 Fax: (514) 350-4314) "The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is an international organization whose members include Canada, Mexico and the United States. The CEC was created under the North American Agreement for Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) to address regional environmental concerns, help prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts and promote the effective enforcement of environmental law."

Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). (CGIAR Secretariat 1818 H Street, N.W. room J-4073 Washington, D.C. 20433, USA, Phone: (1-202) 473-8951 Telex: 82987 WORLDBANK Cable: INTBAFRAD Fax: (1-202) 473-8110 Email: cgiar@cgnet.com Home Page: http://www.cgiar.org) "The CGIAR, established in 1971, is an informal association of fifty-three public and private sector members that supports a network of sixteen international agricultural research centers...The mission of the CGIAR is to contribute, through its research, to promoting sustainable agriculture for food security in the developing countries...The CGIAR holds in trust for the future one of the world's largest ex situ collections of plant genetic resources, containing over 600,000 accessions of more than 3,000 crop, forage, and pasture species."

FORUM: Habitat in Developing Countries (U. Torino) Links Page. (DIPARTIMENTO INTERATENEO TERRITORIO c/o BIBLIOTECA TERRITORIO AMBIENTE Facoltà di Architettura - Politecnico di Torino Viale Mattioli 39, 10125 Torino, Italia Tel.: +39 11 5647469 - Fax.: +39 11 5647499 E-Mail: forum@araxp.polito.it) This is a virtul library about the habitat in developing countries. It is mantained by the "Forum: habitat in developing Countries", an initiative of the Library "Territorio Ambiente" of the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic of Torino. "The main concern of the Forum: Habitat in Developing Countries is to use the internet to ease and improve communication amongst researchers and practitioners from all over the world (especially architects and planners) engaged in innovative approaches to research, planning, development and capacity building projects in developing countries."

IUCN: The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland e90. Our Mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. The Information Management Group provides strategic direction for development of coordinated data and information systems and services. IMG has been actively involved in the creation of the Biodiversity Conservation Information System (BCIS) - a consortium bringing together 9 IUCN programmes and partners; works with WRI and IIED on the International Environment and Natural Resources Information Service (INTERAISE);

IUCN: The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland e90 e98. (IUCN World Headquarters, Rue Mauverney 28 CH 1196 Gland, Switz. Tel: +41.22.9990001 Fax: +41.22.9990002 Email: mail@hq.iucn.org) "IUCN advises and assists governments, organisations and local communities in devising conservation strategies and in their implementation. Through its vast networks worldwide, IUCN helps the world share its hands-on conservation experience in a "cross-fertilization" of ideas that can often lead to innovative solutions to common problems. Its global outreach means that IUCN can help local conservation organisations learn from the experiences of their colleagues thousands of kilometres away and can even equip these groups with the tools necessary to achieve their conservation goals. At the same time, IUCN serves as a veritable bank of information and expertise which can be made readily available to both its constituency and the general public in order to promote conservation." Some examples of IUCN's work include: Restoring a Wetland Ecosystem in Cameroon; Working to protect teh native forests of the Andes in South America; Managing a database of global environmental legislation.Our Mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable....The Information Management Group provides strategic direction for development of coordinated data and information systems and services. IMG has been actively involved in the creation of the Biodiversity Conservation Information System (BCIS) - a consortium bringing together 9 IUCN programmes and partners; works with WRI and IIED on the International Environment and Natural Resources Information Service (INTERAISE).

IUCN Commission on Environmental Strategy and Planning, Sacramento, CA e92. (IUCN/US Suite 502 1400 16th Street NW Washington DC 20036 USA Tel: +1.202.797.5454 Fax: +1.202.797.5461 Email: postmaster@iucnus.org) Established in 1966, CESP has nearly 300 members in 70 countries. IUCN is a union of governments, government agencies, and non-governmental organisations working at the field and policy levels, together with scientists and experts, to protect nature.

The Mountain Institute, Franklin WV c95. (The Mountain Institute, Main & Dogwood Streets, P.O. Box 907, Franklin WV 26807 USA Phone: 304 358-2401 FAX: 304 358-2400 Email: summit@igc.apc.org) "Founded in 1972, The Mountain Institute seeks to preserve mountain environments and advance mountain cultures by promoting worldwide partnerships that create innovative and sustainable solutions to global mountain problems. Our GIS capability supports the conservation goals of The Mountain Institute and its partners by better educating people on environmental issues and management options. By publishing maps that highlight critical mountain environmental issues and are targeted at decision-makers, park managers, and the general public, we ultimately seek to enhance the capacity of mountain peoples to protect their natural and cultural heritage, improve their livelihoods, while sustaining local biodiversity. The Mountain Institute currently serves the role of Convenor for the Mountain Forum: "Originating from activities preceding the 1992 Earth Summit, the Mountain Forum offers a venue for global linkage of individuals and organizations concerned with mountain cultures, environment and sustainable development. Uses GIS to increase effectiveness in advocacy, activism, and network-building in support of mountain environments and cultures worldwide. " Don't Miss their Clickable Map Mountains of the World: GIS Database for The Mountain Forum: "Development of a GIS database of the mountains of the world was initiated to help support the networking goals of the Mountain Forum (MF). The first application of the MF GIS database was to link the existing Mountain Forum membership database with a spatial database allowing for geographical queries of interested MF members. In the future, the GIS database may also include data about mountain areas such as, environmental issues, active regional organizations, or designated protected areas. The GIS Mountains of the World database, integrated with World Wide Web technology, will serve as a window through which the MF organization and its membership may share and access pertinent information worldwide on mountains. The Mountains of the World GIS database is a generalized representation of mountainous regions throughout the world. Polygons are used to symbolize massifs. Each polygon is assigned a number (GISID) which then links that polygon to other databases (i.e. MF membership database). Assigning definite boundaries to a mountain range or massif is problematic...Map compiled by Matthew Sherald, The Mountain Institute, on 7/15/98. The Mountain Institute's GIS laboratory is supported in part through grants from ESRI and the Conservation Technology Support Program."

Pacific Environment and Resources Center, Ca e94. (1440 Broadway, Suite 306, Oakland, CA 94612 USA . Phone: (510) 251-8800; Fax: (510) 251-8838 Email: perc@igc.org Gis contact: David Gordon.) "Pacific Environment and Resources Center protects endangered ecosystems around the Pacific Rim through grassroots advocacy, environmental education, and law and policy analysis. ...GIS capacity has greatly enhanced PERC's outreach efforts, particularly in the United States. Most Americans are unfamiliar with even basic Russian geography, so it is hard for them to imagine the location of a city, mine, or logging operation on the other side of the world. Visual images and maps are key to attracting their assistance in protecting the environment in other countries. PERC has used GIS to develop educational maps to help familiarize government officials, NGOs, foundations, and private citizens with the areas where PERC is active. These maps have proven very effective, and we have been very impressed with the positive response they have received. This enhanced outreach capability has allowed PERC to generate greater awareness about the many threats facing Pacific Rim ecosystems. Perhaps the most effective map that PERC has produced to date is a map of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. Sakhalin Island is receiving the largest international investment in the Russian Far East from multinational oil companies to develop its rich offshore oil and gas reserves. Nonetheless, scientists and environmentalists are concerned about the oil and gas development due to its potential impacts on the rich Sea of Okhotsk marine ecosystem, especially from oil spills. PERC used data from ESRI and other sources to develop a map comparing the extent of damage caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill to Sakhalin Island. This map concept was based on a similar map comparing this tragic spill to the east coast of the United States. The map has had a dramatic effect, since the Valdez spill dwarfs Sakhalin Island and shows that a large-scale spill could reach as far as Hokkaido Island in Japan. It had a particularly strong impact on government and NGO representatives in Japan, whose banks are helping to finance this oil development and whose fisheries would be threatened by a spill. The map has assisted PERC representatives during visits to Japan to encourage greater responsibility among local government agencies as well as in Russia. PERC has now produced the map in English and Russian and is planning to produce a Japanese-language version for an upcoming trip to Hokkaido....PERC will expand its GIS capabilities and its work with Russian NGOs to use GIS mapping as an effective strategy to achieve conservation objectives. PERC will work with NGOs in Primorsky, Khabarovsk, Amursky, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka regions to develop simple GIS maps for conservation purposes. " See Also: "Grassroots Organizing Protects Biodiversity in Southern Siberia (From Pacific Environments, Summer 1999)" by Dave Martin.

Protected Areas Resource Centers (PARC) (Tom Moritz, Chair, WCPA Information Management Task Force, California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA; Tmoritz@calacademy.org.) "PARC will be a distributed network of international, regional, and local information management nodes. PARC International will provide a focal point for an internationally distributed network for the collection of protected areas data, for the production of new protected areas resources and for the design and delivery of information services."

United Nations Development Program. (UNDP WASHINGTON, D.C. LIAISON OFFICE 1775 K Street, N.W., Suite 420 Washington D.C., 20006; Facsimile: (202) 331-9363 Tel: (202) 331-9130/31) UNDP helps countries adopt integrated approaches that focus on managing natural resources to improve the livelihoods of people living in poverty. Priority is given to "preventive" approaches. Care is taken to ensure that actions to cope with immediate crises do not interfere with the long-term ustainability of resources and development processes.

UNEP GRID Arendal. (GRID-Arendal, Longum Park, P.O. Box 1602 MYRENE, N-4801, Arendal, Norway. TEL: +47-370-35500 FAX: +47-370-35050 Email tveitdal@grida.no) "As a part of the global GRID network of cooperating centers, UNEP/GRID-Arendal aims at being a center of excellence for improving the accessibility and the application of scientific knowledge about the environment to policy formulation and decision-making processes....GRID-Arendal specialises in advanced Geographic Information Systems (GIS), data preparation and modelling, database development, data searching and communication via tools such as the Internet and World Wide Web. The Online GIS and Map and Graphics Database has worldwide data in ArcInfo (pc and unix) format for many areas: Agriculture, Base map, Boundary, Drainage, Geology, Land cover, Population, Protected areas, Topography & Bathymetry, Vegetation, Wilderness."

UNEP/GRID-CGIAR COOPERATION ((GRID-Arendal, Longum Park, P.O. Box 1602 MYRENE, N-4801, Arendal, Norway. TEL: +47-370-35500 FAX: +47-370-35050 Email tveitdal@grida.no)) "The main objective of the UNEP/CGIAR project for the 'Use of Geographic Information Systems in Agricultural Research Management' is to establish long-term cooperative links between UNEP and the CGIAR system to effectively integrate natural resource and socio-economic information into agricultural research activities. " see especially: GIS in Agriculture - Examples, and CGIAR SPATIAL DATASET HOLDINGS CATALOGUE (METADATA).

UNEP/GRID Sioux Falls: (Dr. Ashbindu Singh UNEP/GRID-Sioux Falls EROS Data Center Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA ; Tel: 605 594 6117; Fax: 605 594 6119; email: grid@grid1.cr.usgs.gov. www: http://grid2.cr.usgs.gov/) GRID-Sioux Falls has been operational since 1991 and functions as a partnership between UNEP, USGS and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The objective of GRID-Sioux Falls is to help nations attain sustainable development by making remotely-sensed images and other spatial information available as well as developing methods for using this information to support models of population and environment...GRID-Sioux Falls provides access to the extensive data archive of satellite imagery housed at the EROS Data Center. The primary database development activities are land cover characterization, digital elevation mapping, and environmental change analysis.... AVHRR Global Land Cover Project: GRID-Sioux Falls is working in close cooperation with the USGS, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), United States Forest Service (USFS), and NASA to build a global land cover characteristics data base from NOAA 1-km Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery. This database, which is based on satellite remote sensing, is an alternative to conventional land cover maps. The approach provides a flexible source of tailored data that meets the requirements of a wide range of environmental applications.

World Comission On Protected Areas (WCPA). (WCPA Protected Areas Programme, IUCN World Headquarters, Rue Mauverney 28 CH 1196 Gland, Switz.,Tel: +41.22.9990162, Fax: +41.22.9990015, Email: das@hq.iucn.org). "Since 1960 WCPA has grown to be the largest global network of protected area managers and specialists, with 1,000 members and 160 countries. It is centrally coordinated by a Steering Committee and supported by the IUCN Protected Areas Programme." WCPA works to assist in the planning in protected areas thus increase investment and strengthen capacity and effectiveness of protected area managers.

World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge England e89. (Information Officer, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1223 277314; Fax: +44 1223 277136. Email: info@wcmc.org.uk GIS Contact: Jonathan Rhind) WCMC is internationally recognised as a centre of excellence in the location and management of information on the conservation and sustainable use of the world's living resources. These pages will guide you to global data on biodiversity and information relating to WCMC's activities in this field. WCMC maintains a large and varied collection of databases concerning nature conservation. It is beginning the process of making this information available through the Internet with this collection of links: Species Information: Databases on the world's threatened animals and plants, Protected Areas Information: This link includes the 1993 UN List of National Parks and Protected Areas compiled at WCMC and other information, Forest Information: Maps and statistics on the world's forests, Marine Information: Maps and statistics on the world's marine and coastal resources, National Biodiversity Profiles: Facts and figures on the state of biological diversity for a number of countries, WCMC Library Catalogue: WCMC's Bibliographic Service. You can download the Biodiversity Source Book (WP5 & gif format general information about global biodiversity) from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre FTP site. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species: CITES listed Species Database, these on-line databases have distribution and threat information, though no information about populations. NEW: IMS MAP SERVER SITES: Emergency Environmental Information for the Petroleum Industry web site (requires a free password to login, just email jonathan.rhind@wcmc.org.uk to ask for one), Interactive maps of the World Heritage sites, Interactive map of the distribution of birds in the arctic, Interactive map of coral reefs and mangroves,

World Resources Institute (WRI) (World Resources Institute 1709 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20006 Tel: 202/638-6300 Fax: 202/638-0036 general Email: philip@wri.org) The World Resources Institute is an independent center for policy research and technical assistance on global environmental and development issues. Created in 1982, WRI is dedicated to helping governments and private organizations of all types cope with environmental, resource, and development challenges of global significance.. All WRI publications are available online and can be searched, browsed, read, and printed on a page-by-page basis through our Cybrary"

World Wide Fund for Nature, Gland Switzerland. (WWF International Avenue du Mont-Blanc CH-1196, Gland Switzerland Tel: +41 22 364 91 11) WWF is the world's largest and most experienced independent conservation organization, with over 4.7 million supporters and a global network of 24 National Organizations, 5 Associates, and 26 Programme Offices. WWF International, the network's Secretariat, based in Gland, Switzerland, leads the network, develops joint policies and standards, coordinates activities, fosters global partnerships, and provides services to the National Organizations.WWF's mission is to conserve nature and ecological processes. Its ultimate goal is to stop, and eventually reverse, the accelerating degradation of our planet's natural environment, and to help build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. WWF is known as the World Wildlife Fund in the USA and Canada.

World Wildlife Fund, Washington DC e91. (WWF-United States 1250 24th Street, NW Washington, DC 20037-1175 Tel: +1 202 293 4800; Contacts: David Olson, Wesley Wettengel) World Wildlife Fund leads worldwide efforts to protect the world's threatened wildlife and the habitats they need to survive. We are different from other conservation organizations because of the major international scope of our programs. World Wildlife Fund is part of the international WWF network, which has national organizations or representatives in more than 50 countries across five continents. We are uniquely positioned to act quickly when conservation emergencies arise, such as the need to save a highly endangered species. (See: Tigers) or habit at or to acquire valuable land for a park or protected area. Check out what we are doing to save wildife and wildlands in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States.