Hi Ned Refer to my mail to Wolf about 'connections outside North America'. In our outreach programme at FOSS4G2008, Conservation GIS with FOSS could be a big thing on the agenda.
There are many members of SCGIS in (South) Africa. In South Africa alone, conservation planning with C-Plan and Marxan are becoming institutionalised activities. FOSS GIS backends for tools like these would be an excellent alternative. One route into the OSGeo community in Africa is to join the Africa list at http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa. Gavin -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ned Horning Sent: 31 August 2007 04:43 PM To: 'OSGeo Discussions' Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G and conservation Frank Warmerdam wrote: > I'd like to see OSGeo support socially relavent organizations in use of open source > software This is along the lines of what I'm working on so I figure this is a good time to chime in to get feedback. I'm involved in a discussion between the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) and the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) to enhance an international Conservation GIS training program sponsored by SCGIS. The SCGIS has a scholarship program that brings international conservation practitioners to the States to receive ESRI training, ESRI software, attend the ESRI conference, and sometimes get free hardware. It is a great program but it's costly and only meets a fraction of the demand. In principle having an SCB/SCGIS partnership is a good idea but it shouldn't be ESRI-centric. I talked about OSGeo and this seemed to raise some interest (curiosity?) but I sense skepticism. The (inaccurate) perception that ESRI will donate software to any conservation group, largely negating advantages of FOSS4G, doesn't help. The SCB has over 10,000 members and I think this could be a great opportunity for OSGeo to increase global exposure and possibly use it to solicit grant money to support training and software development around the world. SCGIS has a small international network of user groups that can be used to expand this program and I'm trying to figure out if OSGeo could help build a similar or partnered network for open source offerings. The OSGeo education committee members are creating course materials that will be leveraged for this conservation-focused training. I addition to that we need to develop a network of trainers. How much interest is there among the OSGeo community/user groups to support and provide conservation-focused geospatial training? I'd like to hear from anyone but I'm particularly interested in hearing from people with connections outside of North America. Distance learning methods would help overcome the problem of distributing this training globally but there is a strong interest in sponsoring in-person workshops in addition to on-line offerings. Our group at the AMNH is working on addressing both of these needs. Any feedback is appreciated. All the best, Ned -- Center for Biodiversity and Conservation American Museum of Natural History Central Park West @ 79th St New York, NY 10024 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel: 212-313-7947 fax: 212-769-5292 Home office tel: 802-382-9080 Web site: http://geospatial.amnh.org/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss