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As a project-driven organization, our goal is to translate conservation science into compelling visual messages targeted to specific audiences. We work with leading scientists, policy makers, government leaders and conservation groups to produce the highest-quality documentary images of both the beauty and wonder of the natural world and the challenges facing it.

Rhoda this is linking to posts by others around creativity and communication in this endeavor. Interesting.

In California, under state proposed regulations, water pumping from local rivers would be illegal in order to protect a threatened species of salmon. This might clash with grape growers who utilize this water to protect their crops from low temperatures. Legislators must find a solution for the issue at hand without damaging either party.

Similar conflicts over water take place all over the semiarid western US. In Idaho researchers found a way to use satellite imagery (Landsat) to monitor and measure water consumption by agriculture, and identify specific agribusinesses with destruction of streams, for enforcement and litigation support. Their work received a Harvard award for innovation in government. This is not a first for technical solutions for environmental enforcement, but it's an extremely important step in large-scale water management - which will become a bigger and bigger part of our daily life. It may also preserve the USGS Landsat program, which is in danger of abandonment. (This is near to my line of work, as it happens.) (http://ashinstitute.harvard.edu/corporate_site/innovations/innovations_news/mapping_evapotranspiration_wins_innovations_in_american_government_award; more links if you're interested.) Alex_Brown@uml.edu http://gis.uml.edu/abrown2