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Title

 PROTECTEDPLANET.NET HELP TO PROTECT THE PLANET, ONE POLYGON AT A TIME

Abstract

Protectedplanet.net is  the latest evolution of the World Database on Protected Areas, a Global Dataset of Protected Areas maintained for over 30 years by the United Nations Environment Programme. Historically, data collection and provision has been centralised on the Programme and it's staff. With the explosion in visualisation techniques, geospatial tools, Open Source Software, and in global connectivity, there are new opportunities for the creation and stakeholder-led curation of large scale collaborative geospatial datasets and, most importantly, for the data to feedback into national and international processes to better shape the future state of our world.  

The whole website is API driven with the intention to allow other projects to use the data and participate on the conservation and monitoring of Protected Areas. Aditionally we have tried to play nicely on the web, and we are making use of existing resources, like Wikipedia, Flickr, Panoramio, etc. to provide external content and not try to duplicate the web. Current developments focus on the development of mobile applications to allow the tracking and monitoring of  areas.

The project is based on PostGIS, Ruby on Rails and Geoserver. On top, we have developed multiple tools to allow the discovery and engagement of data, the editing of geometries, classification of imagery, etc. All the software developed has been released as Open Source and is available on Github.

 

Authors

Simon Tokumine - UNEP-WCMC
Javier De La Torre - Vizzuality
Craig Mills - UNEP-WCMC
Sergio Alvarez - Vizzuality