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GRASSROOTS by Marshall Mayer |
1. Help Protect The Big Wild
The Big Wild is the Northern Rockies. But it's also a way that citizens can protect their natural heritage. This site lets anyone submit a public comment on a regional EIS (environmental impact statement) that will guide management decisions on one-fourth of all public lands in the lower 48 states for decades to come. In fact, it's currently the only site that citizens can use to submit public comment on a federal envirnmental decision-making process. Pretty kewl.
2. Envirolink
Billed as the largest online environmental information resource on the planet. Hard to tell if that's true, but EnviroLink certainly is big. The EnviroLink Library is a good place to start to find directories of issue-related sites on the net, but there are lots of other interesting places to poke around.
3. Econet
Econet is one of the five issue-focused nets operated by the Institute for Global Communications (IGC). Since it is one of the country's oldest and largest nonprofit Internet Service Providers, Econet has established web pages for several hundred organizations of all sizes.
4. SUWA
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has used its Website very effectively to involve a national constituency in its efforts to protect 5.7 million acres of canyonlands as wilderness. Particularly effective are the maps and photographs of the area, as well as the opportunity to subscribe to its action update listserv.
5. ESRI Conservation Program
The Environmental Systems Research Institute is a private, for-profit company that publishes geographic information system (GIS) software. They are also one of the largest inkind donors of software to the environmental community worldwide. Their ESRI Conservation Program page provides browsers with an overview of conservation uses of GIS, as well as links to the leading organizations using this advanced technology in their efforts to conserve natural resources and protect the environment.
Marshall Mayer is founder and executive Director of Desktop Assistance in Helena, Montana.