- Summary
- Objectives
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Summary
Application of spatial data for conservation planning requires both its availability as well as capacities to utilise it. The investments being made by the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (USA) in the Western Ghats portal will partly address the first part of this problem. This project intended to address the lack of capacities in conservation groups by conducting a minimum of four 5-day workshops on open-source GIS, remote sensing and spatial statistics. Twenty persons are expected to be trained in each of the workshops. Workshops, one in each of the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu were proposed. Potential partners from Goa will be invited to workshops held at venues nearby.
Objectives
- To train them in the use of GIS, GPS and remote sensing applications for conservation planning using open-source tools and technologies.
- To introduce spatial statistics and landscape ecology applications which can be built upon further by these institutions for their conservation agendas.
- To build a list of GIS-enabled resource persons who will provide local support for GIS/RS.
Status
- The project has exceeded the targets set in terms of numbers of students and institutions covered as well as the range of topics that were taught and discussed.
- Over 100 researchers active in the field of conservation and ecology in the Western Ghats were trained in the use of spatially explicit tools including the use of open-source software for GIS, GPS, remote sensing and introduced to spatial statistics and landscape ecology applications.
- The training has filled an important gap in the capacities of these researchers to use spatially explicit data from a variety of sources in conservation related research.
- Online resources for the training in terms of tutorials, quizzes, reading materials and exercises were provided via an internet-based course management software.
- Free and open-source software for spatial applications were installed and configured for each of the participants on their computers.
- The workshops themselves were hosted by five different institutions thereby helping in networking them and creating a group of resource persons.
- The project has helped bring together an initial set of syllabi for teaching spatial analysis to ecologists based on discussions with experts in the field. This may have long term impacts on the quality of research outputs from institutions involved in these fields.