The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has a vested interest in helping countries develop science-based Protected area networks and has pledged support through the development of country-driven National Implementation Support Programs (NISPs).
One way to help overcome the technical challenges of the daunting process of evaluating and filling protected area gaps is the development and use of GIS-based user-friendly tools that support the protected area gap process. The development of a Protected Area Gap Decision Support System (DSS) was conceived as part of an ongoing process to help fill the technical void that exists in many countries. Version 1.0 of these tools was completed in September 2006 and works in ArcGIS 9.1. The new version 2.0 was completed in January 2008, renamed to the Protected Area Tools (PAT) and is now compatible with ArcGIS 9.2. This version includes many new features requested from our users.