UNEP invites Safe Software to Proteus Partnership

28 September 2009, 4:46am

September 28, 2009, Cambridge, United Kingdom – The United Nations Environment Programme‘s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) today announced that they have invited Safe Software into their Proteus Partnership, a collaboration of progressive corporate business leaders and the UNEP-WCMC. The goal of Proteus is to provide industry decision makers with access to the best possible data on location and distribution of biodiversity to support risk management and safeguard the Earth’s biodiversity and ecosystems.

The UNEP-WCMC helps decision-makers to protect conservation areas and therefore ensure that future generations can enjoy the benefits of biodiversity. To accomplish this, the Centre provides critical information to aid biodiversity assessments and policy support for decision making by compiling data from governments and other sectors around the world and making it globally available.

The challenge in achieving this objective is that data is created and stored in a wide variety of formats, models and coordinate systems by providers from all over the world. To overcome these barriers, the UNEP-WCMC turned to Safe Software’s leading spatial ETL platform FME. When Safe Software learned of this situation in 2007, they donated FME to the Centre to help their critical global initiative. The Centre is now able to translate, transform and integrate source datasets as required, to make necessary information accessible and as current and accurate as possible.

"Safe Software has proven to be a valuable partner for the Centre in helping us meet our global mandate," says Mônica Barcellos Harris, Head of Programme - Business, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services at UNEP-WCMC. "Their solution makes it possible for us to compile and deliver the data stakeholders need to make better informed decisions that safeguard biodiversity on our planet for future generations."

Previously, bringing biodiversity information together from all over the world was challenging, requiring manual comparisons of existing maps with new data, which required assumptions that could risk data integrity. Today using FME, the UNEP-WCMC is able to provide this information directly to the decision makers in much less time and with greater accuracy. Additionally, FME has enabled the integration of data from areas of the globe which the Centre previously could not translate, ensuring that the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA), the only global dataset of protected areas, delivers the world-wide data needed to power conservation efforts.

"We’re honoured to be invited into the Proteus Partnership," says Don Murray, President of Safe Software. "At Safe, we fully support the vital work that the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre is doing to help our world. Being able to assist critical initiatives like theirs is what makes our daily work so rewarding."

Moving forward, Safe Software will continue to support the UNEP-WCMC by providing training and sharing their data conversion knowledge to enable further, more efficient data access for biodiversity conservation.

Safe Software

Geo: International