Conservation in the Internet Age

Since the earliest days of our nation, new communications and transportation networks have enabled vast changes in how and where Americans live and work. Transcontinental railroads and telegraphs helped to open the West; mass media and interstate highways paved the way for suburban migration. In our own day, the internet and advanced logistics networks are enabling new changes on the landscape, with both positive and negative impacts on our efforts to conserve land and biodiversity. Emerging technologies have led to tremendous innovations in conservation science and resource management as well as education and advocacy efforts. At the same time, new networks have been powerful enablers of decentralization, facilitating sprawling development into previously undesirable or inaccessible areas.Conservation in the Internet Age offers an innovative, cross-disciplinary perspective on critical changes on the land and in the field of conservation. The book:provides a general overview of the impact of new technologies and networksexplores the potentially disruptive impacts of the new networks on open space and biodiversitypresents case studies of innovative ways that conservation organizations are using the new networks to pursue their missionsconsiders how rapid change in the Internet Age offers the potential for landmark conservation initiativesConservation in the Internet Age is the first book to examine the links among land use, technology, and conservation from multiple perspectives, and to suggest areas and initiatives that merit further investigation. It offers unique and valuable insight into the challenges facing the land and biodiversity conservation community in the early twenty-first century, and represents an important new work for policymakers, conservation professionals, and academics in planning, design, conservation and resource management, policy, and related fields.

James N. Levitt is a fellow at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and directs the Taubman Center's Internet and Conservation Project. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, Levitt developed corporate strategy related to the emergence of the Internet and electronic commerce for Fortune 50 sized companies at GeoPartners Research, Inc. He is active as a director of several conservation organizations, including the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Quebec-Labrador Foundation and the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center at the University of Kansas. Levitt is a 1976 graduate of Yale College and earned his Masters in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Management in 1980.

James H. Beach is assistant director for informatics at the University of Kansas (KU) Biodiversity Research Center. He co-leads the Specify Software Project, a specimen database application used by museums around the world (www.usobi.org/specify ), and is the leader of the Lifemapper Project (www.lifemapper.org ), a distributed computing initiative which archives the known localities and predicted distributions of species. Prior to coming to KU, Beach worked for Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Geological Survey. Beach received his B.S. in Botany from Michigan State in 1976 and his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1983.

Bob Durand was appointed Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs by Governor Paul Cellucci on December 10, 1998. Prior to being named Secretary of Environmental Affairs, Durand was best known for having been a leading advocate for environmental issues during his fifteen-year career in the Massachusetts legislature, and has been recognized for his outstanding leadership by several conservation organizations, including the Environmental League of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Raised in the town of Hudson, Massachusetts, Durand is a 1975 graduate of Boston College.

John W. Fitzpatrick is director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and is a professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University. Prior to coming to Cornell, Fitzpatrick served as executive director of the Archbold Biological Station in central Florida, and as chair of the Department of Zoology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He serves on the national governing boards of The Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society and the American Ornithologist&;s Union (AOU) and is a recipient of the AOU&;s William Brewster Memorial Award. Dr. Fitzpatrick received his Bachelor&;s Degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1974, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1978.

Frank B. Gill is senior vice president and director of science of the National Audubon Society. Dr. Gill came to National Audubon after 25 years guiding the Ornithology Department at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He is the author of an acclaimed textbook, Ornithology, has served as President of the American Ornithologists&; Union, and was honored with the William Brewster Memorial Award, the most prestigious award in American ornithology. Dr. Gill has a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Michigan (1969).

Ralph E. Grossi is president of American Farmland Trust (AFT), a national nonprofit organization working to stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment. Grossi was a cofounder of Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT)