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Jane Goodall Institute

Templeton Roots & Shoots Prizes: Honoring International Changemakers Who Are Making A Difference

Blue Raster is proud to announce another project from our long running collaboration with The Jane Goodall Institute.

Among Jane Goodall's many vital programs is Roots & Shoots, with the mission to empower young people to affect positive change in their communities.

In 2023, JGI collaborated with the John Templeton Foundation to award the Templeton Roots & Shoots Prizes.

Jane Goodall Templeton StoryMap

From the JGI website: "The Templeton Roots & Shoots Prizes are an extension of the partnership between JGI and the John Templeton Foundation to elevate the extraordinary efforts of visionary youth leaders and their adult mentors worldwide.  Awardees were selected based on their exceptional work with Roots & Shoots at the intersection of science, compassion, and community – specifically those who exemplify curiosity and wonder and the pursuit of knowledge, as well as the expression of compassion towards people, other animals and the environment we share."

When Erin Griffin, Director of Partnerships, Jane Goodall Institute-USA sought a novel way to showcase the 30 winners of the inaugural Templeton Roots & Shoots Prizes she turned to trusted partner Blue Raster and the concept of an ArcGIS StoryMap.

The StoryMap showcases the 2023 winners and features an interactive map, videos and a brief write up of each winner and their vital contributions.

StoryMap screenshot

Blue Raster built several StoryMaps for The Jane Goodall Institute. The platform is ideal for visual story telling, with or without a map based visualization.

Check out the Templeton Roots & Shoots Prizes StoryMap, honoring international changemakers who are making a difference today!

Templeton StoryMap

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Jane’s Green Hope: Blue Raster supports 87 Years of Jane Goodall’s Impact

For over 60 years, Dr. Jane Goodall has inspired and motivated millions of people around the globe to live in greater harmony with nature and to take action on behalf of the planet we share. To celebrate her 87th birthday, Dr. Goodall is asking you to pledge to make a difference via the Jane’s Green Hope campaign,

Jane’s Green Hope Pledge

In the fight against biodiversity loss and the Climate Crisis, restoration, regeneration, and protection of global forests are some of our greatest hopes. Join Jane and thousands of people from around the world in taking action to create a greener future for all by making a pledge to the Jane’s Green Hope (#JanesGreenHope) campaign.

Jane and the Jane Goodall Institute’s efforts to protect and restore forests are part of the Trillion Trees initiative. It emphasizes the potential of forests to improve wellbeing and livelihoods for local and indigenous communities, combat climate change, and protect global biodiversity. Every individual can make a difference.

To support this goal, the Jane Goodall Institute asked longtime partner Blue Raster (read about past efforts here) to develop a pledge action response form and dashboard using Esri’s Survey123 , ArcGIS Online Web Maps and ArcGIS Dashboards.  At the end of the campaign, the map will be presented to Dr. Goodall so she can see the global reach of the campaign. YOUR efforts will be on that map if you take the pledge and follow it up with action! Join the  Jane’s Green Hope campaign today!

Jane's Green Hope campaign celebrates Jane Goodall's 87th birthday

Jane Goodall and the Blue Raster Team

Jane's Green Hope campaign celebrates Jane Goodall's 87th birthday

Action Response Form developed by Blue Raster

TAKE ACTION FOR FORESTS & GREENING YOUR COMMUNITY

Pledge to plant, protect, and/or restore native trees and forests, and engage in greening your community. Visit Jane’s Green Hope on the web and take action for the world today!  https://janegoodall.org/make-a-difference/janes-green-hope/

Celebrating 60 Years of Discovery with Jane Goodall

DISCOVERY, INNOVATION & HOPE

On July 14th, 1960, a young Jane Goodall would arrive in Gombe, Tanzania to begin her study of wild chimpanzees. Six decades later, the same Dr. Goodall is a forerunner in the field of animal behavior, an innovator in community-led conservation, and a scientist whose work will continue to influence future generations of researchers.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Dr. Goodall's pioneering research, Blue Raster partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute to create a new, interactive story map using Esri's ArcGIS StoryMaps technology. This new story map, titled DISCOVERY, INNOVATION & HOPE, builds on the previously published ENGAGE – LISTEN – UNDERSTAND – ACT, with a greater focus on how Jane’s work changed the world of conservation.

DISCOVERY, INNOVATION & HOPE utilizes the sidecar feature within ArcGIS StoryMaps to demonstrate how the Jane Goodall Institute’s research area has expanded over the past 60 years. Viewers can travel from the Gombe Stream Game Reserve of 1960 to the over six million hectares of land the Institute now works with today by simply scrolling through the maps.

Jane Goodall Institute Story map

Jane Goodall's Influence

A reoccurring theme throughout the Story Map is Jane’s dedication to mentorship. The knowledge and impact of Gombe researchers extends across the globe with over 300 scientific articles produced at the Jane Goodall Institute. An interactive map of affiliated researchers allows readers of the Story Map to learn a little more about the people who continue to study animal behavior in Tanzania.

Jane Goodall Institute Story map
Images courtesy of Vanne Goodall, Nick Riley Photography, Shawn Sweeney, Lilian Pintea, and the Jane Goodall Institute.

The importance of spatial analysis in conservation efforts is also highlighted. Gombe has three distinct communities of chimpanzees: Mitumba, Kasekela, and Kalande. Using long-term data, researchers were able to estimate range maps for the groups, which then informed decisions on habitat restoration. Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS brings these range maps to life by showing chimpanzee community movement from 1973 to 2016. Story map readers can interact with the app to learn about how deforestation and an increase in human settlements have affected each of the chimpanzee groups.

Jane Goodall Institute Story map

Restoration of vital great ape habitats is jointly achieved through natural resource management and local involvement in land-use planning. Connecting spatial information with conservation efforts fosters a more sustainable environments for both humans and chimpanzees.

View the new story map here. For more information about our work with the Jane Goodall Institute, read our blog posts here.

Highlighting Jane Goodall’s Conservation Approach with a New Story Map

ENGAGE - LISTEN - UNDERSTAND - ACT

Timed to coincide with Dr. Jane Goodall’s plenary speech at the 2019 Esri User Conference in San Diego, California, Blue Raster, Esri and the Jane Goodall Institute teamed up on an exciting new Story Map.

ENGAGE – LISTEN – UNDERSTAND – ACT, built with the brand new ArcGIS StoryMaps template, tells the story behind the ‘Tacare’ approach toward conservation. The story map outlines concerns over chimpanzee populations and the environment, the steps in the process of Tacare, and success stories with this conservation approach.

Beginning with an overview of how Jane Goodall first became involved with conservation through her work with chimpanzees, the story unfolds as Jane noticed that much of the forests in Western Tanzania, home to her beloved chimpanzees, had become barren hillsides after years of farming and other human related activities in the area. She realized that the only way to conserve chimpanzees and their habitat was to work directly with local people and communities. The story map we created titled, Engage - Listen - Understand - Act, explains this holistic approach and some of the successes the area has already seen through the work of Tacare.

Blue Raster is honored to have had the opportunity to help create the first dedicated web presence that details the Jane Goodall Institute's Tacare conservation approach and is especially thrilled to have been able to use the latest version of the next-gen StoryMaps builder.

An all-star team, including master storyteller Allen Carroll from Esri and Lilian Pintea, VP of Conservation Science at the Jane Goodall Institute, worked in collaboration with Blue Raster to produce ENGAGE – LISTEN – UNDERSTAND – ACT.

The new Story Map builder helps the reader flow seamlessly through the story of Tacare; the application intersperses captivating photos taken on the ground in Tanzania and interactive mapping elements that display chimpanzee ranges across Western Tanzania and the African continent. Success with Tacare can be seen in "before" and "after" aerial imagery, which helps readers to visualize the reforestation occurring in the area.

Jane Goodall photos

Not only does this story map detail the incredible conservation efforts led by the Jane Goodall Institute but it also serves as a call-to-action for other conservation efforts and organizations around the world. Conservation is in the hands of local people - by understanding the needs of local communities, we are then able to help create a sustainable future for our world.

BR_JGI

This story map will be displayed at the Esri UC Conference. If you're attending, make sure to check out Blue Raster's booth!

For more info about our work with the Jane Goodall Institute, read our blog post about our dashboard project in Tanzania.

Data to Decisions with the Jane Goodall Institute

Working from the inside out, the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) has notoriously worked for decades to protect the lives of Chimpanzees and other extraordinary wildlife throughout Africa. Blue Raster was elated to get the opportunity to work with JGI to create the Western Tanzania Forest Monitoring Dashboard, connecting communities and data to manage forests and habitats in Tanzania.

"There's no way we can even attempt to save these precious Gombe chimpanzees unless we could improve the lives of the people living around that last little oasis of forest."

-Jane Goodall

Wildlife throughout Africa are depleting due to loss of habitats, illegal poaching, disease, and illegal pet trade, but the Chimpanzees have been hit with some of the most dramatic losses in the last hundred years. Since 1994, the Jane Goodall Institute has focused on Community Centered Conservation, encouraging villages to participate in land use planning. The Forest Monitoring Dashboard was designed to use information collected by locals, evaluate if the monitoring efforts were effective and provide alerts immediately for action.

To create this application, Blue Raster worked with the Open Data Kit (ODK), which JGI has been using since 2010 for on-the-ground GPS Data collection. Locations of Sawmills, Wildlife Traps, and bullet cartridges are just some of things that monitors are looking for to alert Village Government and Park Chiefs of illegal activity.

Using ArcGIS Online, we began to create data services for use in the Dashboard. From the GPS Points came Patrol Paths, and from Patrol Paths came Village Participation. Within the Dashboard, each village can see how their monitoring effort relates to the surrounding communities, as well as determine the variety of threats and wildlife encountered, and explore images taken from each location.

After the completion of the Dashboard, Blue Raster traveled to Kigoma, Tanzania to present with Dr. Jane Goodall to the Regional Commissioners from Kigoma and Katavi regions. We worked with them one-on-one to understand the technology, how it could benefit them, and ways which it could be improved. This trip was one of the farthest from home, and one of the most rewarding. We then had to ask ourselves, what's next for protecting these animals? Can we use Survey 123 for seamless integration with the Esri GIS Suite? What about the use of Drones to detect forest threats? Our work continues.