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  UNEP 19 Dec 06
New Website Explores Technologies and Wildlife Conservation

New website explores the links and provides exciting new resource for the conservation community

Conserving endangered species, and the delicate ecosystems on which both humans and wildlife depend, is one of the greatest challenges faced by the modern world.

However, whilst man's influence on the environment has frequently been a negative one, many of the technologies that have supported rapid social and economic development in recent decades also offer enormous potential to enhance conservation efforts.

The Technologies for Conservation & Development project (t4cd)--a partnership between the international conservation charity Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and the Southern African development NGO ResourceAfrica--has launched an exciting new resource onto the World Wide Web.

The t4cd 'Hub' website, generously funded by Microsoft UK and the Vodafone Group Foundation, is designed to highlight the enormous potential for technologies to enhance conservation and development work, and to help link conservationists' needs with technologists' solutions.

This interactive site hosts information about a wide range of information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as global information systems (GIS), mobile telephony and wildlife tracking devices.

Technologies to provide remote power supply also feature, recognising that much conservation and development work takes place in remote locations where powering electrical equipment is a big issue.

The aim? To make the task of identifying appropriate technology tools less daunting for the average over-worked and resource-constrained conservation practitioner.

The site also features case studies of projects already reaping the benefits of using technologies to help achieve conservation goals.

Developed on Microsoft's latest website management system, SharePoint 2007, the t4cd site will, in due course, also be able to offer interactive features such as discussion fora, blogs and private project collaboration areas.

The hope is that these facilities will help practitioners Worldwide to share experiences in the use of technologies for conservation and development, collaborate, and drive forward the technology for conservation agenda.

The UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is lending generous support to this initiative by hosting the site.

Visit the t4cd Hub at www.t4cd.org and send your comments or contributions to Zoë Cullen at zoe.cullen@t4cd.org
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