Green Turtle Nesting Sites Map Awarded Grand Prize

Redlands, California—June 21, 2011—Andrew DiMatteo, cartographer at the State of the World's Sea Turtles (SWOT) project and associate in research at Duke University, is the grand prize winner in the International Conservation Mapping Competition. DiMatteo's map, Worldwide Green Turtle Nesting Sites 2011, displays 1,167 green sea turtle nesting sites using data from more than 200 data contributors and published sources.

"The SWOT Worldwide Green Turtle Nesting Sites map allows scientists from around the world to contribute findings and collaborate on solutions for the conservation of green sea turtles and their habitats," says Charles Convis, Esri Conservation Program coordinator.

Sponsored by Esri and the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS), the competition was created to acknowledge those involved in conservation initiatives. A grand prize of $5,000 was awarded, and winners of each of the five first-place categories received $1,000.

First-place winners include the following:

• Most Innovative—Brad Stratton, The Nature Conservancy, United States—The Land Protection History of The Nature Conservancy in New York
• Greatest Social Impact —Christopher Walter, Cascade Land Conservancy, United States—Urban Forest Restoration Sites
• Best Use of Science (shared first place) —Karin Bodtker, Living Oceans Society, Canada—Sea Lice on Juvenile Pink and Chum Salmon in BC; Adam Dixon, World Wildlife Fund, United States—Planning for Conservation in the Ruvuma Landscape
• Best Traditional Cartography—Larry Orman, GreenInfo Network, United States—What We've Accomplished in Martis Valley
• Best Interactive Web Map—Andrew Cottam, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, United Kingdom—African Pygmy Goose

To see the award-winning maps and related essays, visit esri.com/scgmaps.

About SCGIS
The Society for Conservation GIS  assists conservationists worldwide in using GIS through communication, networking, scholarships, and training. Membership is open to any individual seeking assistance in the achievement of personal or organizational conservation goals. For more information, visit www.scgis.org.

About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at esri.com/news.



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