Immediately after the Deepwater oil spill began, Defenders of Wildlife initiated a project to use the Conservation Registry platform to track events as the spill unfolded – for example, evidence of oil on beaches and oiled wildlife. Defenders built the Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery site, an interactive web site that combined the latest government maps of the locations of oil along with data on important wildlife habitats. Users can track events as they occur, report their activities and ask for volunteers.

Google Earth
As Defenders started developing the site, staff from Google Earth volunteered to film and produce a video about Defenders of Wildlife’s Gulf of Mexico website. Their team wanted to make the video because they liked the way the Gulf Oil Response and recovery web site uses Google’s technology to show the crisis and to help change the outcome of the spill and restoration efforts. Defenders of Wildlife is now featured as a Google Earth Hero.

From Google’s Lat Long Blog: “In the aftermath of the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, environmental groups across the country have been rallying in support of both immediate coastal reparation and long-term solutions for the damage the Gulf Oil Spill has wreaked on the ecosystem. With those goals in mind… Defenders of Wildlife, an organization dedicated to protecting species and the habitats on which they depend, is doing everything it can to raise awareness and action for greater cleanup and conservation.” Read the whole post here.

The video features the Conservation Registry’s own Gina LaRocco, briefly and clearly explaining the Gulf oil disaster and walking viewers through the website and showing how it works. Check it out here.

The Conservation Registry welcomes the state of Arkansas to the list of  states who have established portals in the Registry. Viewers can visit Arkansas’s portal by going to the State Portal pull-down menu on the Registry home page, or by linking directly to the Arkansas portal.

Arkansas Conservation Activities
Get a look at some of the conservation activities happening in Arkansas by visiting the detail page for Restoring Blackland Prairie and Oak Hickory Woodland at Terre Noire Natural Area. This project is a partnership between the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, The Nature Conservancy, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

And check back often to see what’s happening in Arkansas!

Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery
On April 20, the explosion and sinking of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which killed 11 crew members and left many others injured, started one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. In response to this catastrophe, the Conservation Registry launched the Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery web site to advance effective efforts to save wildlife and keep track of response and recovery in the Gulf of Mexico.

Conservation Registry for Oil Spill Recovery
In the early days following the explosion, conservationists, media and concerned citizens searched for news, maps, images and up to date information about the Gulf. Defenders of Wildlife and partners turned to the Conservation Registry and its powerful mapping tool to visualize the impacted areas. The Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery site is the result—a way for users to map oil spill impacts, enter recovery projects and observations, share photos, ask for help, track the long term impacts of the spill and see what is being done to protect wildlife and coastal habitats.

Mapping Tool
Built in the familiar Google Maps environment, the mapping tool utilizes geographic imagery and forecasts that focus on the Gulf and are updated daily. Additional map layers show known locations of nesting sites, species concentration areas and other environmentally sensitive resources. Conservation Registry project sites can be viewed as well.

How does the Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery web site work?
Users can search the map for impacts and recovery projects by activity type, species and habitats. Impacts and recovery efforts can be viewed in relation to sea turtle nesting sites, manatee locations, high priority federal lands and other relevant map layers. To report an impact or observation, or contribute a new project, users create an account through a simple one-step signup which requires a name and email address.

Types of projects
Observations: Oil slicks or sheen, oiled plants and wildlife, wildlife mortality, oiled beaches. Recovery and mitigation projects: Oil contamination management, boom and barrier placement, beach clean-up, wildlife rescue. Request assistance or search for volunteer opportunities. Post project needs for volunteers, special equipment or funding. Reach out to projects that need help.

Collaboration
As this environmental catastrophe unfolds, and the impacts to wildlife, habitats, human lives and livelihoods stretch from weeks into months, and possibly years, the Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery web site connects users and encourages the most effective solutions.

Go to the Gulf Oil Spill Response and Recovery web site.

Ready to Use and Available Nationally

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Region (Region 1) released a portal on the Conservation Registry which tracks and maps the Section 6 Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund land acquisition projects in the Region 1 states of Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, and National Coastal Wetlands projects as a pilot in Washington. A feature of the portal is to highlight the accomplishments of partners in each project. View portal here.

The Cooperative Endangered Species Fund is part of Section 6 of the Endangered Species Act, which makes grants to U.S. states and territories who are undertaking voluntary projects to protect candidate, threatened and endangered species. These awards include conservation grants, recovery land acquisitions and habitat conservation plans. Read about this program here. The National Coastal Wetlands Project grants are used to acquire and restore coastal wetlands and adjacent uplands for the conservation of fish, wildlife and their habitat. Read more.

“We chose to use the Registry to track and map our National Coastal Wetlands Project grants and Section 6 land acquisition grants as a pilot project for these nationwide programs because the Registry is ready to use and available nationally,” said Joanne Stellini, biologist with the USFWS in Washington state, who is heading up the use of the Conservation Registry for the Pacific region. “Our Registry portal allows us and our state agency partners to showcase our accomplishments and keep the public up to date on conservation where they live.”

The Conservation Registry is a preferred tracking and visualization tool for federal and state agencies and organizations with portals because of the Registry’s ease of use and ability to present project locations and data in context with other efforts being undertaken in the region. It also presents partnership information so users can see how private, state and federal dollars are working together to preserve and protect out treasured natural resources.

View Lily Point Acquisition project: See what almost a dozen partner organizations and agencies can do when they work together in Washington state.

Zumwalt Prairie: In one of the most delicate prairie habitats, USFWS and The Nature Conservancy are working together to preserve habitats for the federally threatened Spalding’s catchfly plant and Snake River steelhead.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

at work in the Gulf protecting sea turtles.

The National Fish and Wildlife’s portal in the Conservation Registry features over 200 conservation projects. NFWF’s projects in the Registry range from Maine to Texas, and almost every state in between.

With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill continuing to spread, conservationists are concerned about many species that are native to or pass through the sensitive coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico. One of the most vulnerable is Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, a species that has been of special concern to NFWF since 1986. The Registry currently contains projects focusing on protecting the turtle, featuring partnerships with Shell Oil through the Shell Marine Habitat Program, the National Park Service, Padre Island National Seashore, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, among others.

NFWF and partners have made special efforts in Texas, particularly Padre Island National Seashore, which is the most important Kemp’s Ridley nesting site in the United States.

Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is the smallest of the sea turtles, averaging about 99 pounds and two to three feet in length. Their population was first reduced by hunting, but today’s threats include pollution, shrimp net entanglement and habitat loss. Add to that the Gulf oil spill which has the potential to devastate many species in sensitive coastal areas.

For 25 years NFWF’s commitment to innovative public-private partnerships has addressed the challenges of habitat degradation and species decline. Make a needed contribution to the conservation and protection of wildlife and habitat by going to NFWF’s web site.

Check out the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle projects in the Conservation Registry.

NFWF has over 100 projects in the southeastern United States. See them all here.

Where are the Bluefin tuna?
See NFWF’s project using satellite telemetry to track Bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico.