Development of our portals

ESUG portals originated in the project to design a Transactional Environmental Support System. TESS (summary here, or more detail) found that local communities especially needed information in the context of socio-economics, for planning development and managing ecosystem services. There was much information in English, but often little in local languages. The naturalliance portal was therefore built in 23 languages for countryside interests managing land and species at local level.

 

A second stage of this work is the System for Community Liaison, which is intended to help any local community to manage its affairs but also be linked for projects on conservation (and in due course health, etc, too). Examples are already on line for Arne Parish Council and East Stoke Community in Dorset and a tourist business at local level. Thanks to the IAF, CMS and GWCT, we now have multilingual networking projects for Saker Falcon interests and Grey Partridge habitats too. 

 

Portals using these templates are beginning to offer internet support for local conservation projects that engage different countryside interests on:

• Managing large mammals, especially around human settlements
• Restoring local micro-habitats for small game and pollinators
• Assessing and improving freshwater habitats through angling
• Community recording and removal of invasive alien species
• Mapping and restoring local ecosystem services

 

The first project portal for restoring habitats for small game and pollinators is being built thanks to International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey (IAF) with strong support from Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT). There is also invitation to assist with a LIFE project just starting for restoring red squirrels by removing alien grey squirrels, and discussion of a multilingual portal to help anglers assess and restore aquatic ecosystems.