Interactive Website
Uses 'Citizen Science' to Boost Global Interest
in Protected Areas
Nagoya / Cambridge (U.K.), 19 October 2010
- Moving from the breathtaking fjords of
western Norway to Australia's only active
volcanoes, touring 150,000 of the world's
protected areas from an armchair is now
possible with the click of a mouse.
The United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) has joined forces with
the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature (IUCN) to create protectedplanet.net
- an interactive, social media-based website
that provides in-depth information on both
the leading lights and hidden gems of the
conservation world.
Using the latest satellite
images, users can pinpoint individual protected
areas - such as national parks or marine
reserves - and zoom in for information on
endangered species, native plant life or
types of terrain.
Protected Planet also
offers visitors the opportunity to upload
photographs of their trips to protected
areas, write travelogues of what they saw
and experienced for Wikipedia and recommend
places of interest nearby-information that
can be shared through social networking
sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
This in turn might inspire
others to make the journey, thus bringing
much needed income to communities in often
poor and sometimes remote areas of the globe.
The Ecotourism industry
is growing fast and currently captures $77
billion of the global tourism market. As
concern about global warming increases,
more tourists than ever are opting for eco-friendly
holidays, including visits to protected
areas. According to Travel Weekly magazine,
sustainable tourism could grow to 25% of
the world's travel market by 2012, taking
the value of the sector to approximately
$473 billion a year.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
"National parks and protected areas
represent one key and successful response
to conserving and managing this planet's
nature-based assets. And in a way that can
generate revenues and livelihoods for local
communities. Indeed by some estimates, $1-$2
billion of global tourism is linked to the
world's network of around 150,000 protected
sites".
"But the benefits
of well-managed tourism are currently uneven
with some parks popular magnets for tourists
and others hidden gems that are relatively
unknown. Protected Planet has the potential
to change this by bringing the world's protected
areas into a living room near you. So whether
you are a government official or a scientist
or a citizen looking for a holiday of a
lifetime, click on www.protectedplanet.net
for a new adventure," he added.
Nik Lopoukhine, Chairman
of IUCN's World Commission on Protected
Areas, said: "National parks and protected
areas in many ways support life as we know
it on planet Earth. ProtectedPlanet.net
will help identify and communicate the many
values of protected areas to the world,
including for carbon and freshwater, ensuring
that the support base for these areas will
be broadened."
The disparity between
popular parks and rarely visited ones is
highlighted by the Annapurna Conservation
Area in Nepal.
Containing some of the
highest peaks in the world, Annapurna is
Nepal's largest protected area. Its snow-capped
peaks and mountain lakes can be viewed on
protectedplanet.net.
Between 2000 and 2004,
Annapurna received over 260,000 visitors,
generating US$7 million in revenue. A share
of the income went towards conservation
projects with local partners.
Protectedplanet.net,
launched today at the 10th Meeting of the
Parties to the Convention on Biological
Diversity, offers an 'Explore the World'
function where users can take an online
visit to several protected areas.
Alongside familiar names
such as the Serengeti in Tanzania or Yellowstone
National Park in the United States, there
are thousands of lesser-known sites that
attract far fewer visitors.
Take the Monte Cristi
National Park in the Dominican Republic,
for example. Travel websites describe a
remote site off the tourist radar, yet a
quick scan on protectedplanet.net reveals
diverse habitats of mangroves and beaches
with abundance of birdlife, including pink-coloured
spoonbills, pelicans and the magnificent
frigatebird - a species renowned for its
scarlet throat pouch that inflates like
a balloon during mating season.
"Protectedplanet.net
is about harnessing technology for biodiversity
conservation. It showcases the beauty of
protected areas and motivates anyone who
discovers it to help, from a tourist to
a government official", says Craig
Mills, Project Manager of Protected Planet
from UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring
Centre (WCMC). "There is a huge network
of people interested in protected areas
out there that we haven't been tapping into,
protectedplanet.net provides the place and
the tools for them to get involved and do
their part", he added.
As well as being an
information mine for tourists, protectedplanet.net
will also offer downloadable information
on protected areas for governments, scientists
and NGOs working on conservation. Online
reports from tourists and visitors including
sightings of species have the potential
to strengthen that work.
Protectedplanet.net
brings together information from all over
the internet, including species data from
the Global Biodiversity Information Facility
(GBIF), protected area descriptions from
Wikipedia, photos from Panoramio and Flickr
and Google maps. The website also expands
on the World Database on Protected Areas
currently managed by UNEP-WCMC.
Protectedplanet.net
applies an innovative, 'Web 2.0' approach
to conservation and will be a powerful tool
to help monitor future biodiversity targets.
With half a million photos already on the
site, protectedplanet.net has the potential
to supply vast amounts of biodiversity information
to the global community and, most importantly,
to prove that it has never been easier for
one person to make a difference to conservation.
Notes to Editors
Protected Planet can be found at www.protectedplanet.net
Tourism and Protected Areas
Natural and cultural
resources in protected areas (e.g. biodiversity,
landscape and recreational values, scenic
views and open spaces) are an important
driver of tourism, the world's largest industry.
Over 40% of European tourists surveyed in
2000 included a visit to a national park
in their travels.
In New Zealand, economic
activity from conservation areas on the
west coast of South Island led to an extra
1,814 jobs in 2004 (15% of total jobs),
and extra spending in the region of US$
221 million/year (10% of total spending),
mainly from tourism
In Bolivia, protected
area tourism generates over 20,000 jobs,
indirectly supporting over 100,000 people
About UNEP-WCMC
UNEP-WCMC is the specialist
biodiversity information and assessment
centre of the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), run collaboratively with
WCMC, a UK charity, based in Cambridge,
U.K. UNEP-WCMC's mission is to evaluate
and highlight the many values of biodiversity
and put authoritative biodiversity knowledge
at the centre of decision-making. Since
its establishment in the 1970s, the Centre
has been at the forefront of the compilation,
management, analysis and dissemination of
global biodiversity information, and has
an outstanding record of achievement'.
About IUCN
IUCN is the world's
oldest and largest global environmental
network with more than 1,000 government
and NGO member organizations and almost
11,000 volunteer scientists in more than
160 countries.
It supports scientific
research, manages field projects all over
the world and brings governments, non-government
organizations, United Nations agencies,
companies and local communities together
to develop and implement policy, laws and
best practices. IUCN's Programme on Protected
Areas administers the World Commission on
Protected Areas (WCPA) - the world's premier
network of protected area expertise. WCPA
has over 1,400 members, spanning 140 countries.
For more than 50 years, IUCN and WCPA have
been at the forefront of global action on
protected areas.
