A growing number of nonprofits are using computer mapping technology to visualize and solve complex social and environmental problems and support planning, fundraising and communications. As dry as the word data sounds, streams of accessible and transparent data about our communities have great potential to spur innovative solutions for public good.

On Monday, I learned about a new interactive online mapping tool that taps unfathomable amounts of ecological data concerning the Bay Area’s undeveloped open spaces, some protected and some not, to help a coalition of open space advocates save Bay Area biodiversity. The big announcement came from the Bay Area Open Space Council on behalf of the new Conservation Lands Network. The level of collaboration and data crunching behind the effort is staggering when you take a look at the network’s product called, “Explorer.”

To check out the new tool, I thought about a hike I took last Sunday in northern Marin County.

My hike climbed the rolling slopes and oak-filled ravines of the Mount Burdell Open Space Preserve near the town of Novato. At the flanks of the 1627-acre preserve, purchased in 1977 by the Marin Open Space District and local residents, large suburban homes crept upslope, stopping at the border. Trails named Cobblestone Fire Road and Old Quarry Trail hinted of a storied past when stones were mined for San Francisco streets in 1888.

From the new Explorer mapping tool, I learned that the swath of land in and around the Mount Burdell Preserve constitutes one area prioritized as “essential” to Bay Area conservation goals.

The preserve is protected but some of the adjacent undeveloped lands are not. Honing in on the area with a drawing tool, I made a shape around the area of my hike, and with one click the system created an automated “Biodiversity Portfolio Report.” Although fairly scientific, I gathered that my hike took me through a number of vegetation types considered “conservation targets” including serpentine grasslands and hardwoods, valley oak woodlands, semi-desert scrub and a couple of rare wildflowers that grow in the preserve’s serpentine soils: Marin western flax and fragrant fritillary.


To learn more about the Conservation Lands Network, read Big Plans for Wild Lands in Bay Nature magazine by former San Francisco Chronicle environment reporter Glen Martin and visit the Bay Area Open Space Council’s blog.

Mapping resources for social and environmental causes:

• MapTogether – This site offers the free Illustrated Guide to Nonprofit GIS & Online Mapping and links to several examples of nonprofits using maps as visual tools for building public awareness, communications and decision-making.
• NonProfitMapping.org – Although this site has been inactive for the last year, the content is still highly relevant for nonprofits, philanthropists and journalists.
• GreenInfo Network – Nonprofit that helps public interest groups, agencies and foundations develop maps and other visual communication tools.
• Justice Mapping Center – Group that specializes in the use of Geographic Information Systems to better understand, evaluate, and communicate criminal justice and other social policy information.
• Stewardship Council’s Youth Investment Program – This web page links to several resources and GIS maps on issues of concern to the outdoor and environmental education field.
• Healthy City – Create maps of social and environmental demographics, data and services in California.

Ansel Adams photo titled The Tetons and the Snake River (1942) Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the National Park Service.

The June 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine features an article by Tony Perrottet called “Jewel of the Tetons,” which describes the secretive mission of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to purchase private properties at the base of the Tetons with the intent of donating the land to the government for permanent protection.

Despite philanthropic intentions, the campaign to purchase over 35,000 acres was mired in 20 years of anti-park controversy, distrust, and debate. It was not until 1950 when Rockefeller successfully donated 33,562 acres to the National Park Service, enlarging the Grand Teton National Park and protecting important wildlife corridors and the mountain grandeur from unsightly commercial development. The family retained the final 3,300 acres, the JY Ranch, as a Rockefeller family retreat until John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s son Laurance began gifting it to the park over several years. On May 26, 2001, Laurance S. Rockefeller donated the remaining 1,106-acre land (also known as the Laurance Spelman Rockefeller Preserve). The park service expects the formal transfer to be complete by later this summer and open to the public in September 2007. With this gift, “the entire JY property becomes part of America’s conservation heritage and marks another milestone in the Rockefeller legacy of stewardship and philanthropy,” writes the park service.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Haases are another one of the nation’s most philanthropic families. Julian Guthrie published an excellent article called “The Haas Legacy – How one family’s generosity and commitment to civic life are transforming the Bay Area.”

The descendants of Levi Strauss (Elise Haas was a great niece of Levi Strauss) and branches of the Haas family operate five independent foundations. The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, established in 1953, has the largest annual giving and was key to the restoration of the former military airfield Crissy Field, along San Francisco’s north shore (completed in 2001). Recently, I visited the tidal marsh and was in awe of the native coastal dune plants flourishing there and the numerous waterfowl and other marsh birds. I remember when the silver dune lupine, sand verbena, and coastal sagewort were new plantings. It was hard to envision the reemergence of the native coastal dune community that once thrived here in the time of the Ohlone. The scene there now is a drastic transformation from the toxic wasteland it once was.

In April, the Haas Jr. Fund made another major philanthropic gift to the Presidio in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) to support the “Post to Park”conversion. This project involves the implementation of a comprehensive 24-mile pedestrian, hiking, and bicycle trail network at the Presidio and the revitalization of the Presidio’s Rob Hill Campground.