Nature

Protecting special places in danger of being changed forever requires urgent action. It’s time for bold conservation strategies to boost land protection around the world.

Bold conservation goals require strategic action. In Protecting the Places We Love: Conservation Strategies for Entrusted Lands and Parks, conservationist and geospatial designer Breece Robertson applies her conservation experience, real-world examples, and myriad resources to deliver a vision for success and clear guidance for conservation groups large and small to achieve their goals.

The goals of these strategies are familiar: support species, habitats, and natural resources and healthy, livable communities that are climate resilient and socially cohesive, all without high costs. Robertson's tools, many of them free, feel quickly accessible, effective, and adaptable to a new or existing conservation strategy. Readers finish this book feeling confident about integrating existing practices with geospatial data and modern applications.

With the smart analysis and targeted action explained in Protecting the Places We Love, readers will better identify places needing protection and better understand how to maximize partnerships, inspire, educate, and engage communities and donors, and produce better results.

See the vision and learn to:

• create maps that tell compelling stories to stakeholders and the public
• analyze park system equity and access and show the economic benefits
• map, model, and analyze land characteristics to enhance biodiversity, connectivity, and climate resilience
• use maps and data to gain insights for fundraising, program initiatives, policy, advocacy, finances, and marketing.  

Protecting the Places We Love is perfect for citizens, and for conservation advocates and professionals at small to medium-sized land trusts, conservation organizations, and park agencies. Examples from land protection organizations all over the globe provide field-tested approaches to improve strategic effectiveness. Robertson provides a vision, strategies, and resources that can take your conservation efforts to the next level.

GIS for Science, Volume 3: Maps for Saving the Planet, highlights real-world examples of scientists creating maps about saving life on Earth and preserving biodiversity.   

With Earth and the natural world at risk from various forces, geographic information system (GIS) mapping is essential for driving scientifically conscious decision-making about how to protect life on Earth. In volume 3 of GIS for Science, explore a collection of maps from scientists working to save the planet through documenting and protecting its biodiversity.  

In this volume, learn how GIS and data mapping are used in tandem with 

• global satellite observation
• forestry
• marine policy
• artificial intelligence
• conservation biology, and
• environmental education

to help preserve and chronicle life on Earth. This volume also spotlights important global action initiatives incorporating conservation, including Half-Earth, 30 x 30, AI for Earth, the Blue Nature Alliance, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. 

The stories presented in this third volume are ideal for the professional scientist and conservationist and anyone interested in the intersection of technology and the conservation of nature. The book’s contributors include scientists who are applying geographic data gathered from the full spectrum of remote sensing and on-site technologies. The maps and data are brought to life using ArcGIS® software and other spatial data science tools that support research, collaboration, spatial analysis, and science communication across many locations and within diverse communities. The stories shared in this book and its companion website present inspirational ideas so that GIS users and scientists can work toward preserving biodiversity and saving planet Earth before time runs out. 

Discover The Geographic Approach to help restore, preserve, and protect the environment.

As we continue to uncover and learn about ecological challenges facing our planet, the job of environmental and natural resource management organizations is becoming increasingly difficult. Finding a Sustainable Balance: GIS for Environmental Management explores a collection of real-life stories about how environmental and natural resource management organizations successfully use geographic information systems (GIS) to monitor environmental assets in real time and provide transparency for better outcomes for all, to track environmental assets, and to prevent environmental hazards from becoming disasters.

Learn how GIS can help improve operations across

• land and wildlife management,
• outdoor recreation, and
• environmental regulation.

The book also includes a section on next steps that provides helpful ideas, strategies, tools, and actions to help jump-start your use of GIS for environmental management. A collection of online resources, including additional stories, videos, new ideas and concepts, and downloadable tools and content, complements this book.

Discover the geographic approach to conservation land management and landscape conservation. 

Geographic information system (GIS) technology offers a comprehensive tool for conservation professionals. A modern GIS gives users a real-time look at their data, locations, and their relationships. When applied to conservation, it reveals dependencies and challenges across multiple environments. Through maps and apps, conservation professionals can observe the field, analyze and organize their data, and collaborate with other organizations and the public on addressing threats and opportunities found. Preserving Our Planet: GIS for Conservation explores a collection of real-life stories about conservation organizations successfully using GIS to meet challenges to biodiversity preservation in our rapidly changing world.

The book also includes a section on next steps that provides ideas, strategies, tools, and actions to help you jump-start your own use of GIS for conservation. A collection of online resources, including additional stories, videos, new ideas and concepts, and downloadable tools and content, complements this book.

Edited by David Gadsden, director of conservation solutions at Esri, and Matt Artz, an Esri content strategist. 

Discover the stories behind Jane Goodall’s visionary approach to community-led conservation.

You know of Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees and her lifelong career advocating for environmental justice. But just as transformative is her work empowering local communities that live on the edge of human settlement to act to protect their natural resources—or to risk losing them forever.

Local Voices, Local Choices: The Tacare Approach to Community-Led Conservation is the story of the Jane Goodall Institute’s holistic approach to conservation, which puts the local people in charge of preserving their surrounding ecosystems. Rather than conservationists leading the effort and imposing their solutions, local communities that live in the affected regions make their own decisions. Working with science and technology and with the support of conservationists, these communities grow to understand their human impact on the environment. By choosing to adopt sustainable livelihoods, they decide their own path into the future, finding ways to balance their environmental impact with their communities’ needs.

Story by story, Local Voices, Local Choices brings readers into the diverse perspectives behind this approach to community-driven conservation—not only those of JGI staff and program partners but also, and equally, those of the local people who lead these initiatives.

Read about:

• The origins of the Tacare approach, originally designed as a 1994 reforestation project with an abbreviation pronounced “ta-CAR-reh”
• A retired village member keeping the knowledge of medicinal plants alive in his community
• Spiritual and cultural story-holders who are vital to the recording and preservation of their traditional ecological knowledge
• Local people participating as forest monitors, village health workers, beekeepers, small-business owners, and educators of the next generation
• Former poachers turned advocates for sustainable land management

Written for conservationists, fans of Jane Goodall, and readers interested in environmental issues, Local Voices, Local Choices is a vibrant expression of Jane Goodall’s vision and her hope that the Tacare approach will be understood and adopted wherever there is a need for genuine community-driven conservation.

Local voices matter, and their choices can make all the difference for generations to come.