Be NetSquared: Year 3
Want a N2Y3 recap? View attendee blogs, vlogs and comments at Be NetSquared.
Natural Areas Association’s (NAA) is developing a model collaborative and networking tool for the conservation community. Through NAA’s proposed mashup, environmentalists will be able to communicate more practical information, at one time, better. Natural areas are “areas of land which have scientific, educational and esthetic value by reason of distinctive natural features. These include areas having unusual plant or animal life and areas having remnants of the original vegetation which have not been disturbed by the activities of man.” – George B. Fell, founder of the NAA and The Nature Conservancy. Natural areas managers who can share recent study findings, new management techniques, methods, and tools will both disseminate and learn from information and help to increase the amount and quality of our planet’s biodiversity. NAA proposes a mashup that disseminates large amounts of constantly changing, comprehensive, technical information, (by emailing website registrants, based on their registered interests, or via a search engine or site search) to anyone taking action. NAA’s website will provide relevant answers and solutions to broad and deep natural areas conservation and management questions.
Information will come from practitioner member blogs, The Natural Areas Journal (the leading voice on natural areas, a peer reviewed quarterly science journal, available via a journal abstract search), The Natural Areas News, The State Natural Areas Roundtable (each state’s up to date, high level, natural areas summary reports, plus key staff contact information), State Natural Area Reports (an ASP.NET application database of states’ natural areas programs), NAAtwork (a communication doorway to other nonprofit, conservation, natural heritage, etc. organizations and government agencies providing Identification, Protection, Management, Research, and Tourism information (the tourism feature will include data sets from partners such as the National Park Service)), Job Board, Webcasts, Store, Webinars, Podcasts, RSS Feeds, ListServs, and Collaborative Alliances with other organizations, such as the Land Trust Alliance (including interfacing with data sets, disseminating information, etc.). The website and its contents will in many languages.
Since 1974, NAA remains the forum for natural areas dialogue. Our mission is to advance the preservation of natural diversity, to inform, unite, and support persons engaged in identifying, protecting, managing, and studying natural areas and biological diversity. NAA has furthered natural areas conservation through restoring habitat to its pre-Columbian state: inventory; public access, and resource management; private landowner-contact programs; prescribed burning; control of exotic species and endangered species database management; public education; and more.
We need a web analyst to help us fine tune our concept, a web architect to assist in the front and back end design, a project manager to oversee, a web designer to develop the look and feel of the site, and an engineer to build the user interface, software, and back end of Natural Areas Association's Natural Areas Ideas Exchange mashup.
We do not have these, yet.