Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

December 31, 2008

International Conservation GIS

CapacityBuilding Partnership

Grant# 684

YEAR THREE REPORT

Presented By:

Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS)

The Nature Conservancy

Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)

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Year Three Report to the Moore FoundationDecember 2008

Grant 684

Selected Program Participant Comments

Theexperienceofbeingamongotherscholarshasbeeninvaluabletome…Lately, duringthetrainingcourses, Idiscoveredthatwedohaveacommonlanguage: GIS.AdrianaPaese, ConservationInternational (CI- Brazil)

I am doing great with my work to implement MIST-GIS for Law Enforcement Monitoring in all conservation project sites of WCS Cambodia Program, incorporate using GIS tools to process all analyzed data. I have made much progress in using GIS tools after applying what I learned from the SCGIS event. Sorn Pheakdey, MIST Database and Training Coordinator WCS Cambodia

The experiences we shared were all wonderful. From the Mongolian and Russian steppes, the experiences on working with the penguins, the Great Amazon forest, the life as it is within the mangroves, the great grasslands and plains of southern Africa, the outstanding encounters from the Madagascar to Central African Community and the associated Congo fores—the home to my ancestors. You made my stay in the US to be what it was, a great one. Alex Ngari

It's difficult to explain exactly how much this means to someone from Madagascar but; in addition to making a valuable contribution towards his practical training which he already really appreciated, the friendly interactions of the SC_GIS over e-mail and this surprise offer of additional assistance is making him feel really valued. I should add that I've also had a lot of pleasure just from witnessing his reaction. Alison Cameron, Internship Host, UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science & Policy

The courses were brilliant and changed the way I see GIS forever. It will surely help me to better support conservation efforts in Southern Africa. Willem van Riet, Scholar, Peace Parks Foundation South Africa

I was already an SCGIS Scholar for the second time and I know that the experience I gained in both visits helped a lot in understanding SCGIS, building a supportive community (this takes time) and also in being able to help other people with experience and knowledge. Dejan Gregor, Leadership Intern, SCGIS Slovenia

InmygrouptherearepeoplefromAfrica, Asia, SouthAmericaandEurope. EachonehasaninterestingstorytotellabouthisorherGISworkinconservation. Icannotstressenoughtheimportanceofthisexchangeofknowledge, technicaltipsandmethodologicalapproaches…. I’malwaysthinkingofmyownworkwiththeEthiopianwolvesandfranticallymakingnotes. It’ssomuchclearerinmymindwhatIwanttodoandhowtoachieveit!" JorgelinaMarino, EthiopianWolfConservationProgramme

Thefactofmeetingpeopleofaroundtheworldandidentifyingthatouractivitiesaresimilarinmanywayshasbeensuchagreatreliefforme. So, nowwearepartofavirtuallistonwhicheachoneofushavethechancetoaskandhelptosolveproblemsaboutprocess, theoriesthatwe, thescholars, have. Butalsowesharenewsaroundtheglobeaboutconservationpracticesthatarehappeninginourcountries. PatriciaPoloAlmeida, UniversityofEcuador

IevenconductedaGISdemonstrationwithitwhiletestifyinginCourtlastOctobertoshowtotheJudgethemapthatIproducedforthecommunitythatistakinglegalactionagainstanoilpalmcompanyforencroachinganddamagingtheirnativecustomarylandandforest. MarkBujang, BorneoResourcesInstitute, Malaysia

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Year Three Report to the Moore FoundationDecember 2008

Grant 684

Partnership Goals

The founding goal of the International Conservation GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Partnership is to "increase the capacity of conservation organizations, governments, and individuals to make effective use of geographic information systems to support biodiversity conservation, by developing and supporting a global community of conservation GIS practitioners." This partnership between The Nature Conservancy, the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) contained three outputs:

A. Conservation GIS Training Scholarship Program, designed tobring dozens of individuals to the United States to receive advanced GIS training and to attend the Annual SCGIS and ESRI Conferences.

B. Conservation GIS Leadership Program, in order to support a select group of international individuals with demonstrated leadership and technical skills to assess needs and build GIS capacity and networks in their home countries.

C. SCGIS International ProgramSupport, to include a range of activities needed to manage, support, and sustain the SCGIS Capacity Building Program.

Overall Summary of Achievements

The key concept for our program's success was leverage. ESRI has been making capacity building donations for 20 years, and we know the power that technology support in GIS can endow in leveraging minimal non-profit resources to achieve great conservation impacts. We are pleased that overall we were able to multiply the $331,000 value of the Moore Foundation’s investment to over $5.4 million in grant value, representing a leverage of over 16:1. We feel that this represents a strong return, and is indicative of how GIS, as a whole, empowers and multiplies abilities for groups who can incorporate it into their operations.

Total participants

We exceeded our original goals for the total number of people trained by over 100 percent. From 2005 thru 2008 we recruited 152 Scholars from 50 different countries across all five continents, from a selection pool of applicants in excess of 300. As the above quotes demonstrate, our participants’ responses were overwhelmingly positive.

Equipment and technology

We secured agreements for donations of equipment and technology from other hardware vendors. ESRI donated full computer setups to each scholar and several large computer labs to our chapters and leaders. $35,877 in hardware support from the Moore Foundation was thereby leveraged 75:1 to achieve a total technology grant value of over $2.6 million

  • TOTAL Scholar HARDWARE from OTHER/ESRI: $64,632
  • TOTAL Leaders HARDWARE from OTHER/ESRI (40 laptops & peripherals @ 450 ea): $18,000
  • TOTAL HARDWARE from OTHER/ESRI: $82,632
  • 152 full GIS suites donated by ESRI, avg. $13,000 each, total value $1,976,000
  • 152 grants of GIS book set donated by ESRI, avg. $730 each, total value $110,910
  • 40 full GIS training lab suites for Leaders program (@13,000 each): $520,000
  • TOTAL SOFTWARE from OTHER: $2,606,910
  • Total in-kind technology grants: $2,689,542

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Year Three Report to the Moore FoundationDecember 2008

Grant 684

Capacity building

ESRI and several other GIS training firms, such as Juniper Systems of Oregon, provided specialized trainers from their staffs for the training program. Training was also provided by SCGIS and Water Resources Institute of California volunteers. We were therefore able to leverage the Moore Training Support budget of $3000 almost 300:1, to achieve a total training grant value of $803,865.

The Leadership Program was a similar success, with many funded proposals from many countries. Each proposal defined objectives and programs aimed at GIS community building in each home country. Many leaders also attended the summer conferences in California and received customized training programs and packages of hardware, software, and books. In continuing to refine guidelines and procedures for the Leadership Program, we incorporated requests from The Nature Conservancy to include specific biodiversity impact and assessment protocols and more rigorous requirements for work plans and reporting.

An experimental Internship program began in 2006 to help build a stronger bridge from Scholars to Leaders and to encourage more scholarship recipients to begin SCGIS chapters and support activities back home. Seven advanced scholars stayed an extra 1-6 weeks in this program at carefully selected host institutions. As a prototype not part of the original Moore Foundation grant, it was funded entirely from ESRI and outside sources, but it's results had a powerful effect with new chapters begun right away from first-time scholars who were given the chance to participate as interns. The benefits from this internship program were integrated completely into the other Moore Foundation funded programs and a more detailed report is included as a new section below.

An experimental Conservation Missions program also began in 2006 which sought to send the best experts on Biogeography and GIS out to field researchers and activists in other countries to teach local courses and work closely with local experts who could benefit from senior GIS analytical support and advice. Because this was initially funded by ESRI, we began our search among the 200 or so Ph.D. staff at ESRI who had specific background, publications and international recognition in conservation or ecological science. We sought to find the best match for their knowledge with active SCGIS chapters possessing researchers and activists in those same specific areas. ESRI has donated $40,000 of in-kind resources to this program.

In terms of Support and Strengthening of SCGIS Operations, we secured funding and commitments from many additional institutions and a growing number of private donations. This includes the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Christensen Fund, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Birdlife International/BP Conservation Program, and Scholar and Private contributions. Combined with the hundreds of thousands in ESRI in-kind support we exceeded significantly the $100K fundraising goal to support SCGIS operations.

The new partnership between SCGIS and the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) resulted in a joint SCB/SCGIS Conference in 2006 in San Jose, CA. SCGIS courses and trainers were also supported at the 2005 SCB Conference in Brazil and the 2007 SCB Conference in South Africa. The benefits to SCGIS thus far have been exposure to and funding by a new group of SCB donors interested in expanding the international reach of the best Conservation Science techniques in collaboration with SCB. Joint conferences with larger organizations also offers the promise of a much larger pool of potential new members and this has indeed begun with SCB albeit more slowly.

The original proposal listed three outputs, each with separate activities for execution and evaluation. Because our evaluation and review were an ongoing process integral to the execution of the program, we have simplified the activity listings for each output by grouping the execution and evaluation activities together.

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Year Three Report to the Moore FoundationDecember 2008

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Expected Outputs, an Overview

Output A: International GIS Training Scholarships.

"Bring dozens of individuals to the United States each summer to receive advanced GIS training and attend the Annual SCGIS and ESRI Conferences"

  • Design program and organize annual logistics for Scholar visits to US: COMPLETE MAR 05
  • Recruit 75 SCGIS Scholars (average of 25 per year): EXCEEDED AUG 08
  • Host Scholars during annual visits to US: COMPLETED AUG 08
  • Deliver annual GIS training to Scholars: COMPLETED AUG 08
  • Organize annual progress reports from Scholars: COMPLETED AUG 08
  • Work with Leadership program grantees co-located with Scholars to monitor/support progress: COMPLETED AUG 08

Output B: Conservation GIS Leadership Program.

"Will support a select group of international individuals with demonstrated leadership and technical skills who can assess needs and build GIS capacity and networks in their home countries."

  • Design Conservation GIS Leadership Program: COMPLETED MAR 05
  • Develop work plan, timeline and deliverables for each grantee: COMPLETED AUG 08
  • Administer work plan: COMPLETED AUG 08
  • Recruit 21 Conservation GIS Leadership Candidates: EXCEEDED AUG 08
  • Evaluate grantee work and improve/modify program : COMPLETED AUG 05
  • Evaluate Impact on Local Conservation Ngo's: COMPLETED AUG 08

Output C: SCGIS International Program Support.

  • Support and Strengthen SCGIS operations, coordination and international training through increased membership by 50% and increased membership renewals by 50%: EXCEEDED AUG 08
  • Raise an additional $100,000 (or FTE equivalent) to support SCGIS capacity building programs; EXCEEDED AUG 08

In Detail, Output A:International GIS Training Scholarships

  • Design program and organize annual logistics for Scholar visits to US

The design of a training scholarship program was completed in 2005. The following subactivities were identified as distinct tasks with separate program management procedures that were designed by 2005 and executed beginning with the 2005 Scholars Group:

Scholar Recruitment, Publicity and Marketing

From November thru February of each year, scholarship announcements were sent out via dozens of discussion groups, affiliated websites, and growing networks of prior scholars. Incoming applications more than doubled each year from 2004 thru 2006, topping out at 163 in 2007, the last formal year of the program. In 2008, scholar selection was handed over to the chapters as an experiment to help them develop further.

Scholar Selection

During review it became apparent that the quality of the applications had increased dramatically. Many of those 350 rejected applicants would have been accepted in any prior year. As a result, we began providing software and training grants to the rejected applicants beginning in 2006, with the result that some of them improved their capacity enough to be awarded full scholarships in later years.

2005: 73 applied, accepted 45 scholars (37 international and eight US/Canada scholars).

2006: 156 applied, accepted 62 scholars. The remaining 93 were given software and self-paced training grants from ESRI.

2007: 163 applied, accepted 35 scholars. The remaining 128 were given software and self-paced training grants from ESRI

2008: 27 applied, accepted 10 scholars.

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Year Three Report to the Moore FoundationDecember 2008

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Scholar Preparation and Visa Negotiations

Visa problems have been a significant source of loss of finalist scholars in prior years. After losing only one person to visa denial in 2005, we experienced a dramatic increase in denials in 2006, despite intense lobbying and embassy communications. Looking at the case by case reasons yielded no pattern other than unpredictable bureaucratic decision-making, such as denying a married parent of children a visa because they were labeled to be at risk of not returning home after their visa expired. In 2007 and 2008 visa denials remained at a high rate.

Scholar Training Program:

A custom training program was designed and organized for each scholar, based on their specific needs and capabilities. Thanks to extensive donations of courses, materials and trainers from ESRI, we were able to provide a total of 1792 student days of training representing an in-kind donation from ESRI of $804,000.

Days of GIS Training Provided by ESRI

2005: 385 student days

2006: 630 student days

2007: 777 student days (provided by ESRI and the Water Resources Institute)

Scholar Conference Program

Presenting scientific papers on Conservation GIS at an international conference was an important part of the GIS Training Scholarship Program. For many scholars it was their first time presenting a paper before a major scientific or technical conference. In recognition of this, we began offering small workshops in presentation skills in program year two which by 2008 had grown into full-fledged multi-day presentation workshops with practice sessions and several dedicated trainers. The three conferences that we were involved in were the Society for Conservation GIS, ESRI, and the Society for Conservation Biology.

Scholars attended multiple conference venues. The annual SCGIS conference attracts about 150-200 Conservationists worldwide in a small conference with a focus on building communities of sharing, support and relationships. Society for Conservation Biology annual conference is a more academic venue of about 3,000 attendees. In 2006 SCGIS was invited by the SCB to hold a joint conference with them in California, and SCGIS Scholars presented papers in both formal SCB science sessions and separate SCGIS sessions. Despite the loss of intimacy typical of a smaller conference, all scholars and SCGIS members felt that the merger was a success and planned to repeat it whenever possible. In 2007 the SCB Annual conference was held in South Africa and many local SCGIS members and local African chapters attended on their own initiative.

Scholars also participated in the annual ESRI User Conference in San Diego. This conference attracts about 15,000 GIS practitioners worldwide for the largest software industry conference of its kind. ESRI's conference focuses on advanced technical issues and user applications in GIS across all sectors. ESRI provided a special sub-venue for SCGIS where SCGIS sessions and events were featured. This program was further coordinated conferences and workshops of Native and First Nations GIS users, Climate Change specialists, U.S. National Park Service GIS staff. The interactions led to many additional opportunities for the scholars to expand relationships with other networks of conservation GIS practitioners. For example, we organized a special internship at YosemiteNational Park for Andrew Scanlon from JiuzhaigouNational Park in China, following his formal SCGIS training. This led to the selection of JiuzhaigouNational Park as a "sister park" with Yosemite, creating a permanent relationship of scientific and cultural exchange to the benefit of both parks.

Training/Conference Equipment Logistics

The expanded size of the Scholar pool meant that we could not rely solely on the pro-bono training facilities used previously. We found pro-bono locations but had to organize all of our own training equipment and hardware for four different venues. That meant obtaining loaner training equipment pro-bono and finding systems engineers able to prepare equipment, travel to set it up and maintain it, and take it down. We were able to find ESRI Staff people who provided dozens of person/days of support, paid for in part by ESRI and in part from their own volunteer donations, for a total in-kind benefit of $20-$40,000 per year. We were able to obtain an equipment loan and donated shipping from ESRI each summer for 30-60 computers and projectors spread across three months.

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Year Three Report to the Moore FoundationDecember 2008

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Scholar Travel logistics

We provided $41,249 in airfare support to the scholars. For ground transportation, ESRI and personal volunteers donated vans, van rental and charter buses in an estimated in-kind value of $15,000 per year, with the remaining $2,000 annual fuel costs assigned to the Moore Foundation grant.

Scholar Food/Lodging logistics

Following the guidelines of the review and qualification process for Scholar requirements to contribute some of their own food costs, $190,159 in food and lodging was distributed for the four years of 4-12 week annual programs, representing over 3,000 paid person-nights of lodging at courses and conferences and lodging with SCGIS volunteers and the University of California. 700 donated person-nights of lodging in Redlands with ESRI and SCGIS volunteers represent a $40,000 value if these students had to be housed within walking distance of the ESRI courses they attended. The 2000 person-nights of lodging donated by the University of California James Reserve represented a retail value of $100,000 if students were to be housed near the Reserve.

Scholar Technology Grants (Hardware and Software)