Natural Areas Ideas Exchange Connection

Challenges Entered:

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 stateâ€™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 statesâ€™ 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.

What else have you done in this area of work?

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.

Project Details

Project url:

http://www.naturalarea.org

Project video:

Project RSS:

http://www.netsquared.org/None%20yet

Supporting organization:

We have a budget allocated for this project and we are seeking additional grant support.

Project Assessment

Financial support:

Project has financial support

Project goals:

Natural Areas Associationâ€™s (NAA) is developing a model collaborative and networking tool for the conservation community. Through NAAâ€™s proposed mashup, environmentalists will be able to communicate more practical information, at one time, better. Natural areas are â€œareas 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.â€ â€“ 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 planetâ€™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. NAAâ€™s website will provide relevant answers and solutions to broad and deep natural areas conservation and management questions.

Identified Obstacles:

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.