Jane Goodall Institute Gets $2.7 Million for Conservation Work Including GIS
The funding comes from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tanzania and aims to aid the Jane Goodall Institute in its efforts to “to provide local community-based organizations and district governments with the training, equipment and other materials needed to protect their forestland and-ultimately- benefit from income earned through the sale of carbon credits through the financing mechanism known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).”
The key bit related to geospatial:
Over the course of the three-year project, JGI will develop methodologies and provide technical training to communities and local and national government partners to help inventory, monitor and manage the forest. JGI will utilize a number of cutting-edge technologies in partnership with Google, ESRI and DigitalGlobe such as mobile Android/ODK and web-based mapping systems along with GIS and high-resolution satellite imagery. JGI will also work to strengthen management practices among participating organizations and improve communication between the government, community-based groups and local residents.
“By using geospatial technologies and the Internet, local communities will be able to interact directly with the global carbon marketplace and demonstrate unequivocally the concrete benefits of their efforts to protect the forest,” said Dr. Lilian Pintea, director of conservation science at the Jane Goodall Institute. “As a result, local information will directly inform and influence national and global decisions regarding climate change.”
