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World's National Parks and Protected Areas Go On-Line
BARCELONA - A new online database that will allow scientists
to arm-chair environmentalists monitor the world's national parks and
protected areas was launched today at the 5th World Conservation Congress
in Barcelona.

The new product, a partnership between the United Nations Environment
Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), also allows
users to zoom in, fly over and explore over 100,000 sites via Google Earth.

The feature may prove as attractive to tourists, planning a visit to a
protected area, as it will to researchers studying the globe's protected
land and marine estate.

Because of some of the new features in this system, the University of
Maryland was able to develop a new feature that gives early warning of
forest fires via e-mail.  This should assist rangers to rapidly mobilize
fire-fighting operations, reducing the risk of serious damage to one of
these economically important nature-based assets.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director said:
"The information in this new system is at the heart of every decision we
make at the nation, regional and global level for conservation."

"Creating and maintaining national parks and protected areas is one of the
most important commitments that nations make towards protecting endangered
species, habitats, landscapes and local livelihoods", he said.."

"The information is used as an indicator in the UN's Millennium Development
Goals, under the heading of 'Ensuring Environmental Sustainability',
because it is recognized that national parks and protected areas protect
more than just nature, they can safeguard against poverty and they are a
lasting legacy of human endeavour", said Mr. Steiner.

"Improved information on protected areas is essential for all involved in
protected areas - from on-ground park managers to scientists.  IUCN's World
Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) welcomes the major improvements in the
World Database on Protected Areas as a crucial planning and management tool
for protected areas", says Nik Lopoukhine, Chair of WCPA.

This new system allows users to view information on national parks and
protected areas in their web browser, to visualise them in Google Earth, to
download data, to bring together other important data like species
information into the same portal and more.

"At UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring Centre we are trying to remain in
the vanguard of making conservation information readily available to the
world", says Jon Hutton, UNEP-WCMC's Director.

"We have a long history of compiling information on the state of the
world's biodiversity, and are currently the secretariat of the
'Conservation Commons', an initiative to make conservation information
accessible and more open to the world.  This new project of making the
World Database on Protected Areas more open and accessible is a concrete
example of taking the principles of the Conservation Commons and making
them real", he added.

Speaking as one of the Proteus Partners, a coalition of oil, gas, mineral
and mining and information technology companies who have contributed more
than $2 million into this initiative, Liz Rogers, from the energy company
BP, made it clear how beneficial this information is to the work they are
doing.

"Companies that have the potential to impact nature should invest in
information that will ensure they can minimise their impact on nature and
thereby lower their risk profile", Dr. Rogers said.  "Linking the
information systems of the oil companies with those of conservation
organizations so that we can avoid or minimise damage to protected areas
and sensitive environments makes sense not only from an ethical
perspective, but also from an economic one", she said.

Charles Besançon, Head of the Protected Areas Programme at UNEP-WCMC, sums
it up like this:  "A fundamental challenge for everyone involved with
conservation is access to information.  From the rangers working on the
ground, to the planning of new projects by the biggest corporations and
environmental bodies, critical information made more accessible allows us
to be much more proactive instead of reactive as we face the environmental
challenges ahead."",

He said some of the features of special interest to park rangers in the
Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) e-mail-warning
system were possible because of the high quality and the availability of
national parks and protected areas data.  The FIRMS system is a partnership
led by the University of Maryland and includes NASA, the UN's Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) and Conservation International.

"This is really just the tip of the iceberg about the types of monitoring
that are possible with these technologies that allow the linking of
real-time satellite data with protected areas boundaries", said Mr.
Besancon.

Notes to Editors

The United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring
Centre (UNEP-WCMC) provides objective, scientifically rigorous products and
services that include ecosystem assessments, support for implementation of
environmental agreements, regional and global biodiversity information,
research on threats and impacts, and development of future scenarios for
the living world.  See http://www.unep-wcmc.org.

The World Database on Protected Areas is a global database freely available
for conservation purposes which provides information on protected areas
world-wide.  With a mandate from the United Nations, managed at UNEP-WCMC
in collaboration with IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas, it is a
critical tool in monitoring progress in the development and coverage of
protected areas world-wide.  For more information visit http://www.wdpa.org

IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, is the
world's oldest and largest global environmental network - a democratic
membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member
organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160
countries. WCPA, the World Commission on Protected Areas, promotes the
establishment and effective management of a worldwide representative
network of terrestrial and marine protected areas.

BP, the global energy company, has nearly 100,000 staff working in over 160
countries. BP is a founding member of the Proteus Partnership; a pioneering
group of private sector companies that have made significant investments in
recent years in bringing conservation data together for purposes of
screening in environmental impact analyses as well as making this
information more widely available for conservation purposes.  See
http://www.bp.com

The Proteus Partnership website is located at http://proteus.unep-wcmc.org

The Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) is located at
http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/.

For more information, please contact:  Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head
of Media, on Mobile when traveling at +41-79-596-5737or
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Or Charles Besançon, UNEP/WCMC, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , mobile:
+44-79-20-511-921
 

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