Abstract
Abstract. Despite ever increasing availability of satellite imagery and spatial data, conservation managers, decision makers and planners are often unable to analyze data without special knowledge or software. WWF is bridging this gap by putting extensive spatial data into an easy to use online mapping environment, to allow visualization, manipulation and analysis of large data sets by any user. Consistent, reliable and repeatable ecosystem monitoring information for priority eco-regions is needed to increase transparency in WWF’s global conservation work, to measure conservation impact, and to provide communications with the general public and organization members. Currently, much of this monitoring and evaluation data is isolated, incompatible, or inaccessible and not readily usable or available for those without specialized software or knowledge. Launched in 2013 by WWF Netherlands and WWF Germany, the Global Observation and Biodiversity Information Portal (GLOBIL) is WWF’s new platform to unite, centralize, standardize and visualize geo-spatial data and information from more than 150 active GIS users worldwide via cloud-based ArcGIS Online. GLOBIL is increasing transparency, providing baseline data for monitoring and evaluation while communicating impacts and conservation successes to the public. GLOBIL is currently being used in the worldwide marine campaign as an advocacy tool for establishing more marine protected areas, and a monitoring interface to track the progress towards ocean protection goals. In the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation area, local partners are using the platform to monitor land cover changes, barriers to species migrations, potential human-wildlife conflict and local conservation impacts in vast wildlife corridor. In East Africa, an early warning system is providing conservation practitioners with real-time alerts of threats particularly to protected areas and World Heritage Sites by industrial extractive activities. And for globally consistent baseline ecosystem monitoring, MODIS-derived data are being combined with local information to provide visible advocacy for conservation. As GLOBIL is built up through the WWF network, the worldwide organization is able to provide open access to its data on biodiversity and remote sensing, spatial analysis and projects to support goal setting, monitoring and evaluation, and fundraising activities.
Highlights
1.1 Conservation on a global scaleThe World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is one of the largest international conservation organizations, comprised of a global network with more than 5,000 employees located in more than 100 countries across the world
WWF has been criticized in recent years over its conservation impacts, and new efforts are underway to showcase activities and outcomes of investments and projects
This land cover and land use map comprises more than 10 categories relevant for important wildlife habitat and helps KAZA assess a majority of the required indicators for project evaluation
Summary
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is one of the largest international conservation organizations, comprised of a global network with more than 5,000 employees located in more than 100 countries across the world. WWF hosts a wide range of spatial data, and putting this data in a useable form on the internet increases visibility but uptake and integration of valuable conservation related datasets, which encourages other organizations to acknowledge rapidyle declining biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystems. This portal plays a role in assessing global data sets to align with Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) indicators and targets which are relevant to WWF’s work (Leadley et al 2014). Complicated dataset which normally requires long download time and processing and technical knowledge and software
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