Posted by MichaelBedingfield
Dear NatureMapr User
You will have heard about the NatureMapr funding difficulties and Aaron Clausen’s announcement that it is closing down. However, things have recently changed. The ACT government prefers NatureMapr to iNaturalist and wants Canberra Nature Map to continue. Negotiations have begun again with the ACT government for extra funding to support CNM into the future longer term. The "Close down” one line banner on the website has been taken down and Aaron Clausen wants CNM and NatureMapr Australia to continue. NatureMapr is well and truly alive and we encourage you to keep adding sightings.
Canberra Nature Map Association
If you aren’t already a part of this new not for profit organisation, we encourage you to formerly join the Canberra Nature Map Association, so that you can receive information directly about developments. You can also be involved in decisions about our future, and informed about any planned social and research activities. To do this, please email secretary.cnnn@gmail.com to seek membership, giving your personal name and NatureMapr username.
Background
Just to maintain the running of NatureMapr and pay Google maps and the costs of retrieving data was costing hundreds thousand of dollars a year. Much of this cost was down to the sheer volume of usage (1.5 million page downloads a month), and the expense of supporting the complex software. To survive NatureMapr needed to be simplified, which included turning off the map and some of the more specialised functions.
The good news is that NatureMapr is back on a more sustainable footing. All existing sightings will continue to be accessible and sightings can be added anywhere across Australia, until at least 30 June 2030. The ACT Government is providing some funding till this date, and we hope it will be continued. Canberra and the Southern Tablelands will continue to be the main focus of the platform. Areas outside of this region will be supported as well.
Relationship to the Atlas of Living Australia
NatureMapr has a monthly feed of verified public records to the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), where you can filter to see your individual records or records from a particular area and these records can be displayed in a map. The next Canberra Nature Map Newsletter will provide guidance on how the ALA map features can best be utilised.
NatureMapr records where you have clicked on the “supress location” button will not have been and will not be forwarded onto the ALA, nor will records of sensitive species. In recent years, the ALA has progressed the data protection provided to sensitive species. State and Territory Governments provide the ALA with a list of sensitive species. The location of any sighting on these lists within the State or Territory of interest is generalised by the ALA to 1km or 10km depending on how sensitive a species is considered to be. There is a high correlation between species regarded as sensitive on NatureMapr and the State and Territory lists. In light of this we are asking moderators to consider whether data on some of the sensitive species, could be sent to the ALA, but only with generalised locations.
Which of my records has gone to the ALA
If you want to check which of your records have gone to the Atlas of Living Australia:
· Go to their website home page https://www.ala.org.au/
· Click on “search and analyse” at the top of the page
· Choose “search and download records”
· Choose “advanced search”
· Scroll down to “Collector Name”
· Type in your NatureMapr username
· Click “search”
· Use tabs to see records, map of records and images.
· You can download the records as a csv table by clicking on the download tab.
Hope to keep seeing your great images and flow of sightings.
Best wishes
The Committee of the Canberra Nature Map Association
Michael Bedingfield (President)
Emma Collins (Secretary)
Michael Mulvaney (Treasurer)
Kim Pullen
Stuart Harris
David Rees
Ciaran Ernst-Russel