The Montana Natural Heritage Program Wins International Technology Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 10, 2006
Contact: Sara Groves
(406) 444-5357
(Helena, MT) - The Montana Natural Heritage Program received the "Outstanding Technological Advancement Award" at NatureServe's International Leadership Conference, which was recently held in Maryland. The award recognizes the Montana Natural Heritage Program's development of a new system that has completely changed how plant and animal species are monitored. The new system allows the program to efficiently add or update hundreds of species records - a process that once took weeks or months. The result is better information for monitoring and conserving the state's most precious species, such as the harlequin duck.
The Montana Natural Heritage Program was selected for this award from a network of 75 natural heritage programs and conservation data centers in the Western Hemisphere, which are coordinated by NatureServe.
"The Montana Natural Heritage Program staff has pioneered the development of new tools that support conservation effectiveness not only in Montana but also throughout NatureServe's network," said Mary Klein, Acting President for NatureServe.
The Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP) revolutionized the data processing system by developing a new automated process that greatly speeds entry of new "Element Occurrence" records to the main database. These records identify locations of "Species of Concern" or important habitat areas. In the past year, the new system has enabled the MTNHP to double their database from approximately 6,000 occurrence records in January 2005 to more than 12,000 occurrence records in January 2006. This provides government agencies, businesses, and the public with highly accurate information for effectively managing Montana's outstanding natural heritage.
The Montana Natural Heritage Program was also one of the first programs to implement and field-test new, more objective methods for ranking species status in the 2005 "Animal Species of Concern" review. This ranking became the cornerstone for prioritizing species in Montana's Comprehensive Fish & Wildlife Conservation Strategy.
"We're extremely happy with the award and the international recognition of our staff's efforts," said Sue Crispin, Director of the Montana Natural Heritage Program. "We look forward to sharing these new technologies with other programs in order to better monitor species that may be in trouble."
Established in 1985, the Montana Natural Heritage Program is the state's source for information on the status and distribution of Montana's native animals and plants, emphasizing species of concern and high quality habitats such as wetlands. The Natural Heritage Program brings to Montana the "big picture" information on the true status of species and habitats by collecting, verifying, and disseminating information to a broad community of users for many applications. To learn more, visit http://mtnhp.org.
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