Project to help at-risk species

By RICHARD WOOD

The Department of Conservation is preparing to pilot its online Biodiversity Information Platform to the public at the end of June.

This will be the third phase of the project, which provides access to detailed information about endangered plants and animals in a map view through a standard internet browser.

DoC project manager Phil McIntyre said the service allowed DoC to consider issues such as the public implications for concessions across DoC-administered land.

"It's really quite important to look at where a person wants to take tourists, or whatever, and look at the underlying values that are on that," he said.

"It could be a historic place or a historic Maori site. It could have endangered plants or whatever.

"That is the beauty of this system in that you can take all those values, put them on a map and textually draw a line and see what is the threat."

McIntyre said he expected that eco-tourists would also be very interested.

"They will want to know what are the things of value that may be in a particular place."

The service will be provided free and is funded by the Government as part of its biodiversity strategy.

The biodiversity strategy is a five year $187 million plan launched in 2000 and aimed at halving the decline in New Zealand's native species and the ecosystems that support them.

The first phase provided the facility to the desktops of 1400 DoC staff throughout the country, including the Chatham Islands.

It included software implementation and development and the purchase of nationwide data.

That was mostly completed in December.

The second phase will provide access to about 20 Government departments, crown research institutes, conservation managers and authorised private groups.

This is expected to be completed by the end of May.

McIntyre said the start of phase one was completed on December 24 as specified and within budget except for training still needing to be done for some staff.

He would not comment on the cost except to say it has been completed within agreed budgets.

However, the Herald understands it was under $1 million for phase one including programming work and purchase of software.

Software and technology services for the project have been provided by geographic information system (GIS) specialist Eagle Technology.

The project involved six staff from Eagle setting up the GIS environment from supplier ESRI, the spacial database engine, and internet mapping services.

DoC had 10 people involved at the height of the project from various parts of the organisation.

nzherald.co.nz/environment