WWF-SIGHT – Why spatial data is vital to conservation David Patterson WWF-UK WWF-SIGHT – Why spatial data is vital to conservation 21st April 2017 wwf-sight.org Hi Good morning my name is David I’m from WWF, if you dont know wwf is a Today I;m going to talk about the importance of sptail data remote secsing data to the conservation sector and give an idea of what we’re doing and the direction we’re going

A Changing World The world is changing at an increasing pace, rising human population and consumption is driving development. Over the next decade we will see massive land use change, particularly in the developing world. How do we as conservationists deal with these changes? How do we keep track of emerging developments? How do we engage with companies, investors, insurers and global markets to protect the natural systems we all rely on? In response to this threat, we’re now seeing conservation turn to spatial data to provide a solution. Indeed I would argue we’re now seeing the rise of a new field, conservation intelligence. So a bit of background

WWF-SIGHT WWF has recently internally launched WWF-SIGHT. It is an online platform which provides access in one place to world leading development and environmental datasets. SIGHT provides basic GIS functionality and can be used by anyone without training. Updated monthly, open to anyone in WWF. Integrated with WWF spatial middleware GLOBIL. www.wwf-sight.org

Value of WWF-SIGHT Monitoring – Allows us to keep track of development assets, against PA, KBAs, IFL, etc. This information in crucial as often early engagement is critical in creating a positive outcome. Research – Allow us to look at development threats on a local, national or global scale. This work can be used to assess global targets like the SDGs. Engagement– SIGHT contains details on ownership which allows engagement directly with the company responsible or with their investors, the state party, or other relevant stakeholders. Communication – Visual outputs from SIGHT are particularly effective for outreach.

ESG+ Indices - Quantitatively assessing a company’s environmental exposure. Taking an oil company, identifying its subsidiaries, identifying their holdings (concessions, wells) and spatially comparing them against environmental datasets, PAs, IFT etc, and scoring. When done across multiple companies it provides for the first time a comparable, quantitative insights into a company’s environmental exposure at a high level.

Moving Forward WWF-SIGHT or any tool like it relies on good data. Without data we can’t do anything. The more data we have the more we can do. We need better coverage, better data, across all sectors. But already, there is so much potential in this area for conservation. Finally, we are totally open to collaboration - sharing the techniques, data models, innovation behind SIGHT. And how this data can be used to help protect the natural world. We are now actively engaging with the other major conservation NGOs in this space to drive forward this type of conservation intelligence.

David Patterson - WWF-UK - djpatterson@wwf.org.uk