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Call for nominations for the 20 most outstanding restoration projects in Australasia

The EMR journal and its parent organization the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) is seeking the 20 most outstanding on-ground ecosystem restoration projects in Australasia (land, water and atmosphere)

The shortlist of projects will be featured via a weblink to SERI's Global Restoration website in time for 2009's international conferences of SERI and INTECOL (which will be held for the first time in Australia.)

SERI is the world's oldest and most dynamic restoration organization with high relevance to Australasia but many projects in Australasia have also developed ideas and techniques of high relevance to the rest of the world. The time is right for international and regional cross-fertilisation!

Closing date is June 16, 2008

Nomination forms are available from:
Tein McDonald
teinm@ozemail.com.au

Ecosystems Database
A database about each habitat and ecosystem is currently being created. Every known ecosystem type found within New Zealand's territory is being included - from seamount's to geothermal stream banks, kelp forests, peat bogs, inland salt pans, sea grass communities and mountain beech forests. The objective properties that define each ecosystem are being gathered from many existing ecosystem classifications and lists.

• NZERN's existing draft Ecosystem Dendogram (2004)
• DoC's Wetland Classification
• MFE Marine Classification
• Draft Geothermal + Cave Classification
• Draft River, Lake and Estuary Classification
• Threatened Ecosystem Classification
• Land Systems classifications mainly produced by Lucas Associates
• Numerous lists from many other sources
• NZERN's GIS system which contains 500+ GIS layers
• Exotic weed ecosystems
• PNAP surveys
• NZERN Advisory Panel
• Books by Ian Atkinson and Peter Wardle
• NZ Journal of Ecology
• DOC Science and Research publications
• Natureserve
• EUNIS

A web page will be provided for each type of ecosystem as part of the wiki project, with the objective ecosystem properties included in a table that cannot be edited by the public. Maps will eventually be included. Members will be able to provide pictures, more descriptions, links and add specific references.

Every restoration site will then be able to be linked to the relevant ecosystems.

GIS hosting
Ecosystems and landscapes will be added to the free web GIS hosting currently being provided to many conservation groups.

Some GIS map examples:
Addington Bush
http://www.bush.org.nz/site/87_explore.html

Eel Creek Reserve QEII Covenant
http://www.bush.org.nz/site/1_explore.html

Mangarakau Wetland Reserve
http://www.bush.org.nz/site/813_explore.html

Later in this year, the image quality of the maps will be improved and members will be able to directly edit their maps using any web browser. This is being made possible by a very generous donation of 4 copies of ArcGIS Server by ESRI and open licensing generously provided by Microsoft NZ.

Computers needed
Donations of servers and laptops are needed to help rapidly expand the free service NZERN is providing.

Ideally 3 year old servers that can run Windows, Linux or Sun with plenty of life would be great, plus any other server room stuff including usable parts like drives, RAM, cables, networking, HVAC. Can also use laptops capable of running Windows 2000. NZERN is able to securely wipe hard drives etc and can pick up from Christchurch. We don't require CRT monitors or keyboards.

Events calendar
The calendar of regular events and Kereru has been delayed by major project deadlines and will return in May.

Internships
NZERN provides unpaid internships in Christchurch for capable postgraduate students. We are currently looking for gifted postgraduates, and welcome those seeking professional development and teacher fellowship opportunities who want to work on:

• ArcGIS Server 9.3
• Geoprocessing development
• Landscape classification
• Natural science literature reviews
• Populating existing ecological databases
• Writing and recording radio interviews about NZ natural history and community involvement
• Te Reo version of this web site
• Interpretive drawings to help explain the natural world
• Creating educational resources for schools
• Ecological thesauri
• Adobe Flash programming
• Linux - PostgreSQL development with emphasis on inheritance
• Java or .NET programming
• XML schema, formatting, transformations, web services
• Accessiblity and CSS

Research projects for PhD students are available.

Volunteering
NZERN has volunteer opportunities in Christchurch for members of all ages who would like to help - ranging from helping with catering, looking after the library, making equipment, answering enquiries, serving on committees, fundraising, etc etc. Formal education is not a requirement, but ability, attitude, reliability and being prepared to learn are.

Web site searching
To simplify searching and enable direct editing of pages by NZERN members, 95% of the 25,000 pages on this web site are being consolidated to a single page for each topic like Wikipedia. 90% of the information will appear for the first time.

14,000 new replacement pages will be automatically created and then randomly checked. There will then be a change-over-date when all the new pages appear.

Phone Mike Peters 03-980-0902 during office hours for more information or if you want to help.

Wekanui Bush
Visit the imaginary world of Wekanui Bush to see how these new pages look and might link to each other.

NZERN Projects
Other projects by members to improve this web site.All members are welcome to help.
Forums
Paid Advertising
Internet Radio
My Library

NZERN National Conference
The one day 2008 National Conference will be held in Christchurch in late spring. The conference on Rural Restoration is now planned for 2009.

Membership
Currently, several thousand individual's are in the process of joining, renewing their membership or un subscribing. Once this web based process has settled down, more features will be rolled out for all members to use. For the moment, everyone can login, change their password, edit their personal details and use the public and private forums. All 265 groups whose memberships have been temporarily frozen will then be able to reactivate their accounts and begin to use the free resources provided for groups. There are also over 100 groups waiting to be able to join.

All groups who are members of NZERN also require at last one human being who belongs to that group to also join NZERN as an individual member so they can act on the groups behalf.

All members have been credited with extra time on their memberships to make up for previous lack of password access. There can be temporary delays in processing membership payments because of workshops and project deadlines.

News will be placed here, on the forums and in Kereru as things develop.

Any questions, just use the forums.

June 3 2008
NZERN Help Desk
03-980-0902

Updated 07/07/2008 5.04AM by PIPI4