Internet used to preserve nature

Internet used to preserve nature

By Tom Wright

JAKARTA (Reuter): An Indonesian nature reserve on the island of Java is the site of an unlikely partnership between conservation groups and two of the world's largest computer companies.

Throughout this month environmentalists from four Asian countries are being trained at the Cibodas nature reserve in how to apply the latest computer technology in their fight to protect ecological biodiversity.

Cibodas, about 50 km (30 miles) of Jakarta, is one of 25 biosphere reserves that the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has set up across Asia, Latin America and Africa to pioneer this scheme.

"There have already been two biosphere reserve training programs in Central and South America, and Africa is still to come," Martha Klein, an environmental officer at UNESCO in Jakarta, told Reuters.

Klein said the computer systems being introduced at Cibodas will give reserve managers access to wide biological and social data which will help them maintain a balance between conserving biodiversity and encouraging sustainable use of resources by local communities.

The introduction of the Internet will also have a large role to play in the future management of the reserves, Gordon Moore, chairman of Intel Corp said in a statement.

"Bringing the power of the personal computer into developing countries allows researchers to...quickly share information with colleagues around the world," Moore said.

Klein said there are currently more than 335 biosphere reserves in 85 countries across the globe, all of which UNESCO hopes will eventually come on-line.

"We want to create a global network of exchange of experience," she said.

Asian reserve managers from Mongolia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia are being trained at Cibodas. UNESCO also runs two projects in China and one in Sri Lanka, Klein said.

Conservation International, a U.S.-based environmental group, is training Asian reserve staff to use the latest computer software in the management of their environmental projects.

"This is conservation at work in today's high-tech world," Silvio Olivieri, vice president of Conservation International, said in a statement.

"Getting the right kind of equipment and technology to people in developing nations is a tremendous help in confronting a multitude of rapidly changing environmental challenges," he said.

Klein said UNESCO set up biosphere reserves in the late 1960s as a way of maintaining healthy ecological systems faced by a burgeoning developing world population.

"Fencing off a conservation area like an island just doesn't work. We have to open it up to people," she said.

UNESCO says the reserves in developing countries, which contain the highest concentration of biodiversity, are under threat without the technical capacity for effective management.

"Personal computers (are) powerful tools to gather data, analyse it and make the best decisions needed for the management of these reserves," it said in a recent report.