NatureServe

NatureServe is a non-profit conservation organization whose mission is to provide the scientific basis for effective conservation action. NatureServe and its network of natural heritage programs are the leading source for information about rare and endangered species and threatened ecosystems in the Americas.

NatureServe represents an international network of biological inventories—known as natural heritage programs or conservation data centers—operating in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. NatureServe collects and manages detailed local information on plants, animals, and ecosystems. It also develops information products, data management tools, and conservation services to help meet local, national, and global conservation needs. The information about species and ecosystems developed by NatureServe is used by many sectors of society—conservation groups, government agencies, corporations, academia, and the public—to make informed decisions about managing our natural resources.

NatureServe is an IUCN Red List partner and, along with its member programs and collaborators, use a suite of factors to assess the conservation status of plant, animal, and fungal species, as well as ecological communities and systems. These assessments lead to the designation of a NatureServe conservation status rank. These ranks are a valuable resource for government agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and others responsible for administration of state and provincial species conservation laws.

NatureServe Explorer is an online database that is a source for information on more than 70,000 plants, animals, and ecosystems of the United States and Canada. NatureServe Explorer includes particularly in-depth coverage for rare and endangered species.

In the United States, NatureServe maintains the National Vegetation Classification Standard for the United States as well as the International Classification of Ecological Communities, currently focused on the Western Hemisphere.

The NatureServe Network

While establishing that first program, TNC chief scientist Robert Jenkins, Jr., developed an innovative, scientific approach to site inventory. Instead of selecting a site for conservation and then inventorying it—as was the norm to date — the focus of the inventory became those biological features in need of conservation attention. The collective distribution of these features would then suggest priority sites for protection. In this context, targeted features included both species and natural communities, or to use the term that was coined to reflect this inclusiveness, elements of natural diversity. This concept of natural diversity was in many ways the functional equivalent of biological diversity, or biodiversity, a term introduced and popularized more than a decade later by E. O. Wilson.

Programs in West Virginia, Mississippi, and Oregon followed in 1975. By 1976, TNC had developed a model for expanding the emerging state network: go to the states and offer to hire and train a staff of biologists, establish an operating center, set up the computers, kick off data collection, and, two years later, let the state take over operations. By 1993, the U.S. network consisted of organizations in all fifty states, providing consistent nationwide data for improving conservation decision-making. Programs also began to be formed in Latin American countries in 1982 and now cover in 11 countries; the Canadian programs first established in 1988 now extend to all provinces and Yukon Territory.

As the network of natural heritage data centers matured, the individual programs began to see the need for increased network-wide collaboration and cooperation as well as new opportunities for the programs’ data and expertise to influence conservation decisions. At the state level, the environmental review functions of natural heritage program contributed to decision-making processes on major infrastructure projects. They also helped inform how best to manage natural resources for biodiversity protection and other public benefits. But big multi-state projects like natural gas pipelines demanded a coordinated effort. By the early 1990s, a group of natural heritage program directors began focusing on the development of network-wide information products. This effort led to the establishment of an independent nonprofit organization devoted to promoting the products and services of the network.

Incorporated in 1994 as the Association for Biodiversity Information (ABI), this membership organization created the institutional framework for broader network-wide coordination. In 1999, TNC’s natural heritage network and ABI formally joined forces, with the Conservancy transferring its databases, professional staff, and scientific standards and methodology to ABI. In 2001, having grown into its present form, this new, independent nonprofit became known as NatureServe.

The NatureServe network today represents the most comprehensive database of scientific information about the nation’s rare and threatened plants, animals, and ecosystems. This information relies on rigorous scientific methods and quality control — the methodology designed by Jenkins remains the defining characteristic of NatureServe's member programs — and now represents more than 35 years of field inventory, data collection, and analysis of species and ecosystems.

See also

References

External links

Category:Conservation organisations Category:Biota by conservation status Category:Environmental issues with conservation Category:Conservation organizations based in the United States