More rapid, accessible and easily digestible digital information, in particular through the introduction of GIS and remote sensing, is urgently needed for better understanding and informing decision making. We at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – the official advisory body on natural World Heritage – believe that improved access to this information can help improve the conservation of natural World Heritage sites.
We present here a collection of analyses, tools and products that are being developed based on cutting edge technology, scientific research and data products to provide perspectives for natural World Heritage sites, such as land cover change and climate change vulnerability. They will support the IUCN World Heritage Outlook project, but we hope by sharing these works-in-progress prototypes, that we would be able to hear from you on how we can make them useful also for you.
With little resource, we want to keep it simple, and focus on the most important thing, one at a time, but try our best to make it work and hopefully make it work really well. We believe in the principle of open data and an open source approach - so that they can be easily reproduced, scrutinised, and extended. Our work wouldn’t be possible if they had not been built on the shoulders of giants who share this principle.