MarineMap Consortium Wins Inaugural Award for Environmental Conflict Resolution
Media Contact: Joe Metro Farallon Geographics, Inc. Tel.: 415-227-1140 x128 E-mail: jmetro (at) fargeo.com
The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution today awarded its first “Innovation in Technology and ECR” Award to the MarineMap Consortium, a group that brings together partners from University of California, Santa Barbara, Ecotrust, Farallon Geographics and The Nature Conservancy.
MarineMap incorporates Google Earth visualization into a Web-based tool for participatory spatial planning. MarineMap allows users to draft planning proposals onto a familiar geography, to generate real-time reports on prospective social and environmental effects of the plans, and to share and discuss their plans with others. In California’s Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, MarineMap has been used to extend participation among fishermen, conservation groups, scientists, and the general public in the planning of marine protected areas off the state’s coast. Available for download as an open source technology, MarineMap can be used to facilitate spatial planning processes on land or sea.
The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution is a program of the Udall Foundation, an independent federal agency based in Tucson, Arizona. Udall Foundation Deputy Executive Director of Environmental Conflict Resolution Mark Schaefer presented the award to Dr. Will McClintock, director of the MarineMap Consortium. “We are grateful for this recognition,” said Dr. McClintock, “and we are thrilled to develop a technology that invites the public to the table on important environmental decisions.”
For more information on Farallon’s collaboration on the MarineMap project, please visit our case study.
About Farallon Geographics
Farallon Geographics (www.fargeo.com), based in San Francisco, is a leader in the planning, implementation, and integration of geospatial data and GIS systems to support mission critical business functions. As systems integrators focused on geographical data, Farallon provides unique and unbiased strategic and technical implementation services for enterprise-scale GIS.
