OpenChannels Weekly Update Archives

For the week of 09 April 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Thursday, April 19, 2018 for a webinar on What do you need your conservation planning software to do? Listening session for the modernization of NatureServe Vista. Presented by Patrick Crist of NatureServe. 

NatureServe Vista is currently an ArcGIS extension that supports general scenario-based assessment at multiple scales, ecological assessments, mitigation planning, and area planning (for multiple objectives) and ongoing adaptive management in any environment (marine, terrestrial, freshwater). NatureServe, founder and co-coordinator of the EBM Tools Network, is embarking on a $500K full modernization of this tool over the next 15 months. The goal of this 90-minute listening session is to get input from the coastal-marine practitioner community to make sure coastal-marine use interests are represented in tool assessment, planning, and mitigation functionality. This session will present plans for the new version of the tool and get participant feedback. To learn more about NatureServe Vista generally, visit www.natureserve.org/vista. (The 8-min video may be particularly useful.)

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar173

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 02 April 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Tuesday, April 24, 2018 for a webinar on What can KSAT do for your MPA? KSAT's marine monitoring and data services. Presented by Paul Whitaker of KSAT. 

Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) is a Norwegian organization that operates a global network of satellite antennas, handling over 30,000 satellites passes per month from a diverse portfolio of sensors. With ground stations at both poles, KSAT is able to communicate with earth observation satellites every 40 minutes – including cloud-penetrating SAR (synthetic aperture radar), high-resolution optical (capable of identifying vessel types and specifics), and AIS (which can provide detailed information about vessel identities and route specifics when in use). As the number of satellites in orbit continues to grow exponentially, KSAT continues to serve as a single source for accessing information about the marine environment, including vessel information, from anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. This webinar will provide an overview of KSAT’s services and then seek to learn more about the needs of the MPA community, including identifying potential partners for pilot projects to test the utility of KSAT’s services for managing MPAs.

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar172

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 26 March 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Thursday, May 3, 2018 for a webinar on Cumulative Impact Tools for Maritime Spatial Planning: Current Status of European Efforts.

Cumulative impact tools can be useful for evaluating the environmental effects resulting from human activities in a given area. Several initiatives are underway in Europe to develop and enhance cumulative impact tools and assessments to incorporate the ecosystem-based approach in marine management, as called for in multiple policy frameworks (e.g., Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive, and regional seas conventions such as the Barcelona Convention). This webinar will share latest developments on cumulative impact tools from Europe, including examples of their application from Portugal and Montenegro. The webinar is co-organized by the EU MSP Platform (www.msp-platform.eu), a service funded by the European Commission to share relevant knowledge and experiences on MSP. The EU MSP Platform recently organized an expert roundtable on cumulative impact tools for maritime spatial planning (http://msp-platform.eu/events/cumulative-impacts-tools-expert-roundtable). Conclusions from this roundtable will be shared during the webinar, including limitations and opportunities for further incorporating these tools in MSP and SEA processes.

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar171

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

P.S. Next week we will have half a table at the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference in Seattle. Come by and find us if you're there! 

For the week of 19 March 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 1 pm US EDT/10 am US PDT/5 pm UTC for a webinar on Finding the right 10%: Assessing MPA progress and the BlueBRIDGE platform. Presented by Miles Macmillan-Lawler of GRID-Arendal.

As we move towards the 2020 deadline for countries to fulfil their commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Target 11, now is a good time to take stock and ask the question – are we protecting the right 10% of marine area in our MPAs? Not only does Aichi Target 11 talk about conserving 10% of coastal and marine areas, it specifies the effective conservation of areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services and ecologically representativeness as key goals. So how do we know if we are achieving this? This webinar will outline a framework for assessing the progress of MPAs in achieving these goals and present the Protected Areas Impact Maps Virtual Research Environment on the BlueBRIDGE platform (https://bluebridge.d4science.org/web/protectedareaimpactmaps), an open access application which uses this framework to assist countries in assessing their progress against Aichi Target 11 and ensuring that they get the right 10%.

Webinar co-sponsored by the NOAA National MPA Center, MPA News, and the EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe).

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar170

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

P.S. The Nature Conservancy finished their new Marine Planning website. Check it out here! 

For the week of 12 March 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Thursday, March 22, 2018 at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 6pm UTC for a webinar on Optimizing Restoration Activities for Ecosystem Services: The Restoration Opportunities Optimization Tool (ROOT). Presented by Peter Hawthorne of the University of Minnesota and the Natural Capital Project.

Restoration Opportunities Optimization Tool (ROOT) is a software tool that helps decision makers evaluate trade-offs among different ecosystem services and visualize where investments in restoration could be made to optimize benefits for multiple landscape goals. It uses information about the potential impacts of restoration or management activities together with spatial prioritization or serviceshed maps to identify key areas for ecosystem service provision. It then uses multi-objective analysis to allow users to consider how to best manage tradeoffs between different project goals. ROOT has been applied in Costa Rica, Myanmar, Malawi, Colombia, and Brazil’s Espirito Santo State to help these countries optimize the placement of restoration activities for ecosystem services in national and subnational conservation, development, and agricultural objectives in support of increased ecological function to benefit people and livelihoods. It has not yet been applied in a coastal context but is applicable to coastal areas as well. The tool is free for download and use at https://www.naturalcapitalproject.org/root.

Webinar co-sponsored by EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by NatureServe and OCTO) 

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar169

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 05 March 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Tuesday, October 2, 2018, 1pm US EDT / 10am US PDT / 5pm UTC for a webinar on Managing Global Acidification on a Regional Scale: How the US Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Coastal Acidification Networks (MACAN and NECAN) Are Working to Understand Impacts through Partnerships.

The chemistry of the ocean is changing. Carbon dioxide released through emissions and deforestation is absorbed and dissolved into the ocean. The regional Coastal Acidification Networks of the US Northeast and Mid-Atlantic (NECAN and MACAN) are consortiums of scientists, marine industry, and resource managers with a central goal of sharing information to better understand the impacts of acidification to appropriately manage and adapt to these conditions. Coordinators for NECAN and MACAN will discuss how these regional efforts work towards identifying and pursuing opportunities to understand coastal and ocean acidification in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, building upon the skills and interests of individual members and providing a forum to share best practices in monitoring, sampling collection, and researching effects to collectively meet the challenges of our changing coastal and ocean waters.

Webinar hosted by the EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe).

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar168

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 26 February 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 1pm EDT / 10am PDT / 5pm UTC for a webinar on Elsevier's 2017 profits exceeded $1.2 billion: how to reclaim your rights as an author without feeding the beast.

RELX Group, the holding company that owns Elsevier, the world's largest publisher, brought in profits that exceeded US $1.2 billion in 2017 alone. With a profit margin of 37%, they make more profit per-dollar than Google and Apple combined! So what can you as an author do to stop feeding this profit-hungry beast?

Elsevier and other for-profit publishers allow you to make your research available for free to the world via Green Open Access (Green OA). Papers available for free this way are cited 30% more on average. If they're licensed openly, they can also be text-mined and translated for free, too -- all without paying costly OA fees to the publisher!

Get your research published where you want (even behind a pay-wall) by making it freely-available via Green OA with MarXiv: the free research repository for the ocean and marine climate sciences. Not only can you make your research Green OA for free, but you can also share your data and other research outputs for free. Give your group’s reports a free DOI, too, and ensure they’re indexed in academic search engines like Google Scholar.

This webinar will be presented by Nick Wehner, OCTO’s Director of Open Initiatives and the Project Director for MarXiv.

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar167

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 19 February 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Thursday, April 26 at 1pm EDT / 10am PDT / 5pm UTC for a webinar on Why Polystyrene Is The New Microbead. Presented by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Executive Director of The 5 Gyres Institute.

Through the 5 Gyres nix the 6 Action Campaign, thousands of people have pledged to refuse single-use polystyrene plastic. What does it mean to Nix the 6? #sneakystyrene polysytrene products are everywhere, from coffee cup lids to straws, cutlery and cups (even red SOLO cups). Expanded polystyrene foam—commonly known as "Styrofoam"—is basically polystyrene that's expanded with air. You can identify these plastics by the number "6" on the bottom. When you Nix the 6, you pledge to refuse these single-use plastics. 

Why is this so important? 5 Gyres has seen how individual decisions like these can snowball into massive change. Our 2012 study that discovered plastic microbeads in the Great Lakes inspired a movement, culminating with major corporate phase out—think L’Oreal and Johnson & Johnson—and statewide bans on both coasts. In 2015, President Obama signed a federal microbeads ban into law!

Like microbeads, polystyrene plastics are environmental hazards. They are extremely toxic to make and difficult to recycle. Polystyrene and "Styrofoam" are even banned from many recycling programs because of contamination problems—less than 2% of polystyrene was recycled in 2013. 

With local polystyrene bans on many ballots this year and a statewide ban being considered in California, this is the year to join the movement. We did it before with microbeads—now it's time for a polystyrene ban! 

In this webinar, we’ll cover the new 5 Gyres white paper on polystyrene and reproductive toxicity, activism resources, and our partnership with the Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN) to support bans on college campuses—even in preemptive states. 

Meanwhile, look for the #sneakystyrene hashtag to follow the campaign on social media.

Webinar co-sponsored by EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by NatureServe and OCTO).

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar166

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,

- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 12 February 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Tuesday, March 13, 5 pm EDT / 2 pm PDT / 9 pm UTC for a webinar on Two perspectives on evaluating MPA management effectiveness: lessons learned from Australia's Great Barrier Reef and India. Presented by Jon C. Day of the ARC Centre for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.

The term ‘Management Effectiveness Evaluation’ (or MEE) is well recognized as an important part of adaptive management for any protected area.  Differing assessment methodologies have emerged around the world, many of them building upon the Framework agreed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and its World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) for assessing management effectiveness. In this talk, Jon will discuss some of the lessons learned when applying the IUCN/WCPA framework to assess MEE in a large and complex marine protected area (MPA) like the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Jon will compare and contrast this with a similar, but simpler, use of the same IUCN framework that he developed, working in conjunction with GIZ India, for Indian MPAs. 

Webinar co-sponsored by the NOAA National MPA Center, MPA News, and the EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe).

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar165

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,
- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 05 February 2018

Letter from the Editor

Join us Thursday, March 29, Noon EDT / 9 am PDT / 4 pm UTC for a webinar on The MPA reality check: A chance to see fisheries management in English MPAs. Presented by Jean-Luc Solandt of the Marine Conservation Society and Tom Mullier of Marine Mapping Ltd.

Political parties in England and Scotland are working together to develop a network of new MPAs (known as marine conservation zones or MCZs in England). The UK government is designating a final tranche of MCZs by the end of 2018. UK MCZs are different from other MPAs worldwide, however, because management measures for MCZs aren’t explicit for entire sites (or zones) but are instead eventually implemented for individual species and habitat features within sites. This leads to a complex system where regulators assemble evidence of cause and damage (or the potential for damage) to features in sites and manage accordingly. With this system, elements such as connectivity, representation, and replication can be assessed relatively easily, but it is difficult to assess level of protection. In addition to working on Brexit, the UK government – and local regulators (Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities) – have been working to implement fisheries management measures in English sites in recent years. The NGO Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is keen for the public, sea users, and journalists to become aware of where proactive regulation is happening, and for which habitats. To this end, MCS has worked with Marine Mapping Ltd to develop a tool MPA Reality Check (https://map.mpa-reality-check.org) to show were active fisheries management is taking place in these English MPAs. This webinar will describe the tool, political reasons for implementation of controls, and where (e.g., offshore sites) there has been limited progress due to EU processes.

Webinar hosted by the EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe)

To register, visit: https://oct.to/Webinar164

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,
- Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

P.S. OCTO will be at AGU's Ocean Sciences Meeting next week in Portland, Oregon. If you're around, come visit our booth in the exhibition center – we'll have OpenChannels and MarXiv swag on-hand!

P.P.S. If you're the author of a paper published by SpringerNature, you might want to read this. Turns out SpringerNature isn't allowing anyone to simply email the corresponding author, making it near impossible to request a copy of your paper for non-subscribers.