10 Years of NatureMapr!
Posted by Choyster
15 Sep 2023
G'day everyone, this weekend NatureMapr is celebrating its 10th anniversary since it all began in Canberra on Ngunnawal country! We couldn't be more thankful to our users for contributing to and growing the NatureMapr community with overwhelming passion and support. See our very first sighting of an endangered spider orchid here: https://canberra.naturemapr.org/sightings/8168!
NatureMapr has embedded a successful model for citizens to partner with the ACT Government which benefits from subsequent positive environmental outcomes. With a user base of over 10,000 contributors, our ambition is to expand our model Australia-wide. A big thanks goes to our dedicated moderators for their incredible contributions to NatureMapr. Thanks to a monumental community effort we can proudly say that NatureMapr has:
- Recorded 5x the number of endangered species records compared to the previous 100 years;
- new species and endangered colonies have been discovered;
- prescribed burns and development applications are now informed by your contributions;
- invasive weeds and pests are identified and eradicated in response to citizen data;
- the biodiversity of parks and reserves is measured transparently and;
- we are sharing important knowledge in a friendly community setting whilst making a real-world impact!
We've also got some exciting developments coming your way!
Our next application update will add an external link on the app that navigates to your profile webpage so you can conveniently showcase all your sightings on handheld devices.
For our NSW users, your local sightings will be fed into the NSW Bionet database, with our data feed scheduled to go live in the coming weeks! In light of the growing number of local and national entities using our data, we are releasing a 'Biodiversity information handling and data quality' statement for our stakeholders. Users can be assured we will keep data-sensitive sightings secure, in compliance with the RASD framework https://rasd.org.au/. A major partnership will also be announced soon...
A new Help and Support page for common app and website errors has been added to the website for your convenience https://canberra.naturemapr.org/content/help-and-support.
Our school campaign is underway! Radford College was the first school to get in on the action. Year six students used NatureMapr as a case study for their final projects demonstrating the nature-positive outcomes of citizen science and the significant role collective local efforts play in conserving the natural environment. For further information on NatureMapr for schools check out this link https://naturemapr.org/content/schools .
