Conservation GeoPortalWelcome to the Conservation Base Map workspace
By Web Admin on 9/2/2005 | Keyword(s): DocumentsFor several years now, I've been promoting the notion that National Geographic can leverage its long tradition of high-quality cartography, its well-known brand, its global reach, and its mission to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge to 1) assist the conservation community in making its burgeoning geographic information resources more easily shared, and 2) intepreting and distributing that information to a broader public via the Web and print.
It's been exciting in recent months to have met with representatives of most major conservation organizations and to have them without exception embrace this notion. We've collaborated in refining and expanding the concepts for the World Conservation Base Map. We've gotten the support of ESRI in bringing the latest geospatial and Web technologies to bear, with the promise of utilizing the infrastructure they've created for the U.S. government's Geospatial One Stop to create a new conservation portal. And we're close to completing a proposal that we'll soon use to solicit foundation and corporate support for the Base Map project.
National Geographic and ESRI are starting work on an exciting new version of our interactive Web-based atlas at www.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine. The new version, which we'll launch early in 2006, will incorporate high-quality cartography and satellite imagery with high-performance 2-D and 3-D viewers. If all goes well, it will allow for massive collaboration, enabling people to create and share all sorts of place-based information on various subjects. All of these features will be available to the Conservation Base Map effort. I'm posting the latest draft of the proposal and would appreciate your comments and suggestions.
Many thanks to Frank Biasi and TNC for providing this workspace. And many thanks to all of you for collaborating on this project.
Yours,
Allen Carroll
Chief Cartographer National Geographic Society