An Elephant is Faithful 100%

Folks,

I recently received the following appeal from the African Elephant Database.
They need help migrating to PostGIS and building out their application.

I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which deserves the
PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our mascot! Plus
the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS project for
species conservation databases.

Who's available?

---------------------------
I'm writing with to explore the possiblity of a collaboration between
Postgresql, PostGIS and the African Elephant Database (AED) of the IUCN/SSC
African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG). Please allow me to begin by
giving you a little background on all those acronyms, in reverse order.

The AfESG is a group of elephant experts from across the African continent
who, aside from their daily jobs, disinterestedly lend their skills to
provide technical advice on elephant conservation and management. The
mission of the AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of African
elephants throughout their range, and the group focuses its efforts on
capacity building, alleviation of human-elephant conflict, compilation and
dissemination of technical information, and the development of elephant
conservation strategies. Led by a volunteer chair, the AfESG has a small
secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya. Please see http://iucn.org/afesg/ for
details.

The AfESG is one of the most active of over 120 Specialist Groups of the
IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). The largest conservation grouping in
the world, the SSC is a worldwide network of over 7,000 volunteer experts
working to conserve the diversity of species found on Earth. The SSC is
responsible for the production of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc and http://www.redlist.org.

The SSC is the largest of the six commissions of IUCN - The World
Conservation Union. IUCN is the world's largest and most important
conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111 government
agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some
10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide
partnership. IUCN's mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies
throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and
to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically
sustainable. The World Conservation Union was founded in October 1948
following an international conference in Fontainebleau, France. IUCN HQ is
in Gland, Switzerland. See http://iucn.org/.

The African Elephant Database
The AED is a geographical information (GIS) system used to maintain an
accurate and up-to-date record on the distribution and abundance of African
Elephants. The AED is regularly updated, with data on elephant range and
numbers constantly being solicited from wildlife authorities and experts
across the continent, and a major report is produced every three years and
made available in the AfESG website (see http://iucn.org/afesg/aed/).

The AED currently runs in ESRI ArcGIS 9.1., in a personal geodatabase (MS
Access) format. We obtained ArcInfo through one of ESRI's conservation
program grants - but soon we were being asked to pay for maintenance charges
in excess of USD3,000 per annum. Despite these costs, we are considerably
constrained by the limitations of the set-up - including the MS Access 2Gb
size limit. If we were to upgrade our configuration to a full geodatabase
would involve acquiring ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) plus a
commercial RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL server, at a one-off cost of
several thousand dollars and annual maintenance fees to match.

Such costs are well beyond our reach, we are hoping to build a more
sustainable solution using open source software. Although opensource GIS has
not evolved as much or as quickly as opensource relational databases, we do
have some hopes that a suitable system could be developed to maintain the
AED. The AED is the most comprehensive species database in existence, and we
believe there would be value in developing a turnkey solution that can be
used to maintain monitoring information on other species for which there are
relatively good data.

We've got the elephant and the database in common. If you think a
collaboration could be productive and mutually beneficial, please let me
know so that we can begin to explore the options.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Julian Blanc
Manager, African Elephant Database
IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group
Email: julian(dot)blanc(at)iucn(dot)org
Web: http://iucn.org/afesg/
--------------------------------------------------

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which deserves the
> PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our mascot! Plus
> the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS project for
> species conservation databases.
>
> Who's available?

I'm available. Sounds great, let's get it started. I've got PG and Perl skills
to contribute, plus a biology background.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200511181633
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iD8DBQFDfki1vJuQZxSWSsgRAmrhAKC1D13Iu8wR9Zqf+7hC3tmWk0nO4QCglWia
maL1NIQk+7um3L4ksc2oa4Q=
=KRoK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I can make myself available to collaborate on database
design, tuning, etc.

--elein
elein(at)varlena(dot)com

On Fri, Nov 18, 2005 at 01:15:07PM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I recently received the following appeal from the African Elephant Database.
> They need help migrating to PostGIS and building out their application.
>
> I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which deserves the
> PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our mascot! Plus
> the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS project for
> species conservation databases.
>
> Who's available?
>
> ---------------------------
> I'm writing with to explore the possiblity of a collaboration between
> Postgresql, PostGIS and the African Elephant Database (AED) of the IUCN/SSC
> African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG). Please allow me to begin by
> giving you a little background on all those acronyms, in reverse order.
>
> The AfESG is a group of elephant experts from across the African continent
> who, aside from their daily jobs, disinterestedly lend their skills to
> provide technical advice on elephant conservation and management. The
> mission of the AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of African
> elephants throughout their range, and the group focuses its efforts on
> capacity building, alleviation of human-elephant conflict, compilation and
> dissemination of technical information, and the development of elephant
> conservation strategies. Led by a volunteer chair, the AfESG has a small
> secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya. Please see http://iucn.org/afesg/ for
> details.
>
> The AfESG is one of the most active of over 120 Specialist Groups of the
> IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). The largest conservation grouping in
> the world, the SSC is a worldwide network of over 7,000 volunteer experts
> working to conserve the diversity of species found on Earth. The SSC is
> responsible for the production of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
> See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc and http://www.redlist.org.
>
> The SSC is the largest of the six commissions of IUCN - The World
> Conservation Union. IUCN is the world's largest and most important
> conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111 government
> agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some
> 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide
> partnership. IUCN's mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies
> throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and
> to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically
> sustainable. The World Conservation Union was founded in October 1948
> following an international conference in Fontainebleau, France. IUCN HQ is
> in Gland, Switzerland. See http://iucn.org/.
>
> The African Elephant Database
> The AED is a geographical information (GIS) system used to maintain an
> accurate and up-to-date record on the distribution and abundance of African
> Elephants. The AED is regularly updated, with data on elephant range and
> numbers constantly being solicited from wildlife authorities and experts
> across the continent, and a major report is produced every three years and
> made available in the AfESG website (see http://iucn.org/afesg/aed/).
>
> The AED currently runs in ESRI ArcGIS 9.1., in a personal geodatabase (MS
> Access) format. We obtained ArcInfo through one of ESRI's conservation
> program grants - but soon we were being asked to pay for maintenance charges
> in excess of USD3,000 per annum. Despite these costs, we are considerably
> constrained by the limitations of the set-up - including the MS Access 2Gb
> size limit. If we were to upgrade our configuration to a full geodatabase
> would involve acquiring ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) plus a
> commercial RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL server, at a one-off cost of
> several thousand dollars and annual maintenance fees to match.
>
> Such costs are well beyond our reach, we are hoping to build a more
> sustainable solution using open source software. Although opensource GIS has
> not evolved as much or as quickly as opensource relational databases, we do
> have some hopes that a suitable system could be developed to maintain the
> AED. The AED is the most comprehensive species database in existence, and we
> believe there would be value in developing a turnkey solution that can be
> used to maintain monitoring information on other species for which there are
> relatively good data.
>
> We've got the elephant and the database in common. If you think a
> collaboration could be productive and mutually beneficial, please let me
> know so that we can begin to explore the options.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Julian Blanc
> Manager, African Elephant Database
> IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group
> Email: julian(dot)blanc(at)iucn(dot)org
> Web: http://iucn.org/afesg/
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> --
> Josh Berkus
> Aglio Database Solutions
> San Francisco
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>

elein wrote:

>I can make myself available to collaborate on database
>design, tuning, etc.
>
>
Command Prompt can donate some hardware resources and database design
resources.

>--elein
>elein(at)varlena(dot)com
>
>On Fri, Nov 18, 2005 at 01:15:07PM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
>
>>Folks,
>>
>>I recently received the following appeal from the African Elephant Database.
>>They need help migrating to PostGIS and building out their application.
>>
>>I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which deserves the
>>PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our mascot! Plus
>>the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS project for
>>species conservation databases.
>>
>>Who's available?
>>
>>---------------------------
>>I'm writing with to explore the possiblity of a collaboration between
>>Postgresql, PostGIS and the African Elephant Database (AED) of the IUCN/SSC
>>African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG). Please allow me to begin by
>>giving you a little background on all those acronyms, in reverse order.
>>
>>The AfESG is a group of elephant experts from across the African continent
>>who, aside from their daily jobs, disinterestedly lend their skills to
>>provide technical advice on elephant conservation and management. The
>>mission of the AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of African
>>elephants throughout their range, and the group focuses its efforts on
>>capacity building, alleviation of human-elephant conflict, compilation and
>>dissemination of technical information, and the development of elephant
>>conservation strategies. Led by a volunteer chair, the AfESG has a small
>>secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya. Please see http://iucn.org/afesg/ for
>>details.
>>
>>The AfESG is one of the most active of over 120 Specialist Groups of the
>>IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). The largest conservation grouping in
>>the world, the SSC is a worldwide network of over 7,000 volunteer experts
>>working to conserve the diversity of species found on Earth. The SSC is
>>responsible for the production of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
>>See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc and http://www.redlist.org.
>>
>>The SSC is the largest of the six commissions of IUCN - The World
>>Conservation Union. IUCN is the world's largest and most important
>>conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111 government
>>agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some
>>10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide
>>partnership. IUCN's mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies
>>throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and
>>to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically
>>sustainable. The World Conservation Union was founded in October 1948
>>following an international conference in Fontainebleau, France. IUCN HQ is
>>in Gland, Switzerland. See http://iucn.org/.
>>
>>The African Elephant Database
>>The AED is a geographical information (GIS) system used to maintain an
>>accurate and up-to-date record on the distribution and abundance of African
>>Elephants. The AED is regularly updated, with data on elephant range and
>>numbers constantly being solicited from wildlife authorities and experts
>>across the continent, and a major report is produced every three years and
>>made available in the AfESG website (see http://iucn.org/afesg/aed/).
>>
>>The AED currently runs in ESRI ArcGIS 9.1., in a personal geodatabase (MS
>>Access) format. We obtained ArcInfo through one of ESRI's conservation
>>program grants - but soon we were being asked to pay for maintenance charges
>>in excess of USD3,000 per annum. Despite these costs, we are considerably
>>constrained by the limitations of the set-up - including the MS Access 2Gb
>>size limit. If we were to upgrade our configuration to a full geodatabase
>>would involve acquiring ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) plus a
>>commercial RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL server, at a one-off cost of
>>several thousand dollars and annual maintenance fees to match.
>>
>>Such costs are well beyond our reach, we are hoping to build a more
>>sustainable solution using open source software. Although opensource GIS has
>>not evolved as much or as quickly as opensource relational databases, we do
>>have some hopes that a suitable system could be developed to maintain the
>>AED. The AED is the most comprehensive species database in existence, and we
>>believe there would be value in developing a turnkey solution that can be
>>used to maintain monitoring information on other species for which there are
>>relatively good data.
>>
>>We've got the elephant and the database in common. If you think a
>>collaboration could be productive and mutually beneficial, please let me
>>know so that we can begin to explore the options.
>>
>>I look forward to hearing from you.
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>
>>Julian Blanc
>>Manager, African Elephant Database
>>IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group
>>Email: julian(dot)blanc(at)iucn(dot)org
>>Web: http://iucn.org/afesg/
>>--------------------------------------------------
>>
>>--
>>Josh Berkus
>>Aglio Database Solutions
>>San Francisco
>>
>>---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>
>>
>>
>
>---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>
>

--
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.503.667.4564
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/

I can donate some time.

The best email for getting in touch with me about this is
chris(at)metatrontech(dot)com

Josh Berkus wrote:

>Folks,
>
>I recently received the following appeal from the African Elephant Database.
>They need help migrating to PostGIS and building out their application.
>
>I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which deserves the
>PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our mascot! Plus
>the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS project for
>species conservation databases.
>
>Who's available?
>
>---------------------------
>I'm writing with to explore the possiblity of a collaboration between
>Postgresql, PostGIS and the African Elephant Database (AED) of the IUCN/SSC
>African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG). Please allow me to begin by
>giving you a little background on all those acronyms, in reverse order.
>
>The AfESG is a group of elephant experts from across the African continent
>who, aside from their daily jobs, disinterestedly lend their skills to
>provide technical advice on elephant conservation and management. The
>mission of the AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of African
>elephants throughout their range, and the group focuses its efforts on
>capacity building, alleviation of human-elephant conflict, compilation and
>dissemination of technical information, and the development of elephant
>conservation strategies. Led by a volunteer chair, the AfESG has a small
>secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya. Please see http://iucn.org/afesg/ for
>details.
>
>The AfESG is one of the most active of over 120 Specialist Groups of the
>IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). The largest conservation grouping in
>the world, the SSC is a worldwide network of over 7,000 volunteer experts
>working to conserve the diversity of species found on Earth. The SSC is
>responsible for the production of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
>See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc and http://www.redlist.org.
>
>The SSC is the largest of the six commissions of IUCN - The World
>Conservation Union. IUCN is the world's largest and most important
>conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111 government
>agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some
>10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide
>partnership. IUCN's mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies
>throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and
>to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically
>sustainable. The World Conservation Union was founded in October 1948
>following an international conference in Fontainebleau, France. IUCN HQ is
>in Gland, Switzerland. See http://iucn.org/.
>
>The African Elephant Database
>The AED is a geographical information (GIS) system used to maintain an
>accurate and up-to-date record on the distribution and abundance of African
>Elephants. The AED is regularly updated, with data on elephant range and
>numbers constantly being solicited from wildlife authorities and experts
>across the continent, and a major report is produced every three years and
>made available in the AfESG website (see http://iucn.org/afesg/aed/).
>
>The AED currently runs in ESRI ArcGIS 9.1., in a personal geodatabase (MS
>Access) format. We obtained ArcInfo through one of ESRI's conservation
>program grants - but soon we were being asked to pay for maintenance charges
>in excess of USD3,000 per annum. Despite these costs, we are considerably
>constrained by the limitations of the set-up - including the MS Access 2Gb
>size limit. If we were to upgrade our configuration to a full geodatabase
>would involve acquiring ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) plus a
>commercial RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL server, at a one-off cost of
>several thousand dollars and annual maintenance fees to match.
>
>Such costs are well beyond our reach, we are hoping to build a more
>sustainable solution using open source software. Although opensource GIS has
>not evolved as much or as quickly as opensource relational databases, we do
>have some hopes that a suitable system could be developed to maintain the
>AED. The AED is the most comprehensive species database in existence, and we
>believe there would be value in developing a turnkey solution that can be
>used to maintain monitoring information on other species for which there are
>relatively good data.
>
>We've got the elephant and the database in common. If you think a
>collaboration could be productive and mutually beneficial, please let me
>know so that we can begin to explore the options.
>
>I look forward to hearing from you.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Julian Blanc
>Manager, African Elephant Database
>IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group
>Email: julian(dot)blanc(at)iucn(dot)org
>Web: http://iucn.org/afesg/
>--------------------------------------------------
>
>
>

Hyperic would be happy to donate licenses of HQ for them to monitor
and manage their setup. Please let me know what they need and if
they're interested.

-javier
___________________________________
Javier Soltero
Hyperic | www.hyperic.net
o- 415 738 2566 | c- 415 305 8733
javier(dot)soltero(at)hyperic(dot)net
___________________________________

On Nov 18, 2005, at 1:15 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I recently received the following appeal from the African Elephant
> Database.
> They need help migrating to PostGIS and building out their
> application.
>
> I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which
> deserves the
> PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our
> mascot! Plus
> the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS
> project for
> species conservation databases.
>
> Who's available?
>
> ---------------------------
> I'm writing with to explore the possiblity of a collaboration between
> Postgresql, PostGIS and the African Elephant Database (AED) of the
> IUCN/SSC
> African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG). Please allow me to begin by
> giving you a little background on all those acronyms, in reverse
> order.
>
> The AfESG is a group of elephant experts from across the African
> continent
> who, aside from their daily jobs, disinterestedly lend their skills to
> provide technical advice on elephant conservation and management. The
> mission of the AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of
> African
> elephants throughout their range, and the group focuses its efforts on
> capacity building, alleviation of human-elephant conflict,
> compilation and
> dissemination of technical information, and the development of
> elephant
> conservation strategies. Led by a volunteer chair, the AfESG has a
> small
> secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya. Please see http://iucn.org/afesg/ for
> details.
>
> The AfESG is one of the most active of over 120 Specialist Groups
> of the
> IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). The largest conservation
> grouping in
> the world, the SSC is a worldwide network of over 7,000 volunteer
> experts
> working to conserve the diversity of species found on Earth. The
> SSC is
> responsible for the production of the IUCN Red List of Threatened
> Species.
> See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc and http://www.redlist.org.
>
> The SSC is the largest of the six commissions of IUCN - The World
> Conservation Union. IUCN is the world's largest and most important
> conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111
> government
> agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and
> some
> 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide
> partnership. IUCN's mission is to influence, encourage and assist
> societies
> throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of
> nature and
> to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and
> ecologically
> sustainable. The World Conservation Union was founded in October 1948
> following an international conference in Fontainebleau, France.
> IUCN HQ is
> in Gland, Switzerland. See http://iucn.org/.
>
> The African Elephant Database
> The AED is a geographical information (GIS) system used to maintain an
> accurate and up-to-date record on the distribution and abundance of
> African
> Elephants. The AED is regularly updated, with data on elephant
> range and
> numbers constantly being solicited from wildlife authorities and
> experts
> across the continent, and a major report is produced every three
> years and
> made available in the AfESG website (see http://iucn.org/afesg/aed/).
>
> The AED currently runs in ESRI ArcGIS 9.1., in a personal
> geodatabase (MS
> Access) format. We obtained ArcInfo through one of ESRI's conservation
> program grants - but soon we were being asked to pay for
> maintenance charges
> in excess of USD3,000 per annum. Despite these costs, we are
> considerably
> constrained by the limitations of the set-up - including the MS
> Access 2Gb
> size limit. If we were to upgrade our configuration to a full
> geodatabase
> would involve acquiring ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) plus a
> commercial RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL server, at a one-off
> cost of
> several thousand dollars and annual maintenance fees to match.
>
> Such costs are well beyond our reach, we are hoping to build a more
> sustainable solution using open source software. Although
> opensource GIS has
> not evolved as much or as quickly as opensource relational
> databases, we do
> have some hopes that a suitable system could be developed to
> maintain the
> AED. The AED is the most comprehensive species database in
> existence, and we
> believe there would be value in developing a turnkey solution that
> can be
> used to maintain monitoring information on other species for which
> there are
> relatively good data.
>
> We've got the elephant and the database in common. If you think a
> collaboration could be productive and mutually beneficial, please
> let me
> know so that we can begin to explore the options.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Julian Blanc
> Manager, African Elephant Database
> IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group
> Email: julian(dot)blanc(at)iucn(dot)org
> Web: http://iucn.org/afesg/
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> --
> Josh Berkus
> Aglio Database Solutions
> San Francisco
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

I can donate a development server for this, if its required ...

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Chris Travers wrote:

> I can donate some time.
>
> The best email for getting in touch with me about this is
> chris(at)metatrontech(dot)com
>
> Josh Berkus wrote:
>
>> Folks,
>>
>> I recently received the following appeal from the African Elephant
>> Database. They need help migrating to PostGIS and building out their
>> application.
>> I, personally, cannot imagine a more compelling project which deserves the
>> PostgreSQL community's collective help. The elephant is our mascot!
>> Plus the AED folks introduced the idea of making this a general OSS project
>> for species conservation databases.
>>
>> Who's available?
>>
>> ---------------------------
>> I'm writing with to explore the possiblity of a collaboration between
>> Postgresql, PostGIS and the African Elephant Database (AED) of the IUCN/SSC
>> African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG). Please allow me to begin by
>> giving you a little background on all those acronyms, in reverse order.
>>
>> The AfESG is a group of elephant experts from across the African continent
>> who, aside from their daily jobs, disinterestedly lend their skills to
>> provide technical advice on elephant conservation and management. The
>> mission of the AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of African
>> elephants throughout their range, and the group focuses its efforts on
>> capacity building, alleviation of human-elephant conflict, compilation and
>> dissemination of technical information, and the development of elephant
>> conservation strategies. Led by a volunteer chair, the AfESG has a small
>> secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya. Please see http://iucn.org/afesg/ for
>> details.
>>
>> The AfESG is one of the most active of over 120 Specialist Groups of the
>> IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC). The largest conservation grouping
>> in
>> the world, the SSC is a worldwide network of over 7,000 volunteer experts
>> working to conserve the diversity of species found on Earth. The SSC is
>> responsible for the production of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
>> See http://iucn.org/themes/ssc and http://www.redlist.org.
>> The SSC is the largest of the six commissions of IUCN - The World
>> Conservation Union. IUCN is the world's largest and most important
>> conservation network. The Union brings together 82 States, 111 government
>> agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and some
>> 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide
>> partnership. IUCN's mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies
>> throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and
>> to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically
>> sustainable. The World Conservation Union was founded in October 1948
>> following an international conference in Fontainebleau, France. IUCN HQ is
>> in Gland, Switzerland. See http://iucn.org/.
>>
>> The African Elephant Database
>> The AED is a geographical information (GIS) system used to maintain an
>> accurate and up-to-date record on the distribution and abundance of African
>> Elephants. The AED is regularly updated, with data on elephant range and
>> numbers constantly being solicited from wildlife authorities and experts
>> across the continent, and a major report is produced every three years and
>> made available in the AfESG website (see http://iucn.org/afesg/aed/).
>>
>> The AED currently runs in ESRI ArcGIS 9.1., in a personal geodatabase (MS
>> Access) format. We obtained ArcInfo through one of ESRI's conservation
>> program grants - but soon we were being asked to pay for maintenance
>> charges
>> in excess of USD3,000 per annum. Despite these costs, we are considerably
>> constrained by the limitations of the set-up - including the MS Access 2Gb
>> size limit. If we were to upgrade our configuration to a full geodatabase
>> would involve acquiring ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) plus a
>> commercial RDBMS such as Oracle, DB2 or MS SQL server, at a one-off cost of
>> several thousand dollars and annual maintenance fees to match.
>> Such costs are well beyond our reach, we are hoping to build a more
>> sustainable solution using open source software. Although opensource GIS
>> has
>> not evolved as much or as quickly as opensource relational databases, we do
>> have some hopes that a suitable system could be developed to maintain the
>> AED. The AED is the most comprehensive species database in existence, and
>> we
>> believe there would be value in developing a turnkey solution that can be
>> used to maintain monitoring information on other species for which there
>> are
>> relatively good data.
>>
>> We've got the elephant and the database in common. If you think a
>> collaboration could be productive and mutually beneficial, please let me
>> know so that we can begin to explore the options.
>> I look forward to hearing from you.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Julian Blanc
>> Manager, African Elephant Database
>> IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group
>> Email: julian(dot)blanc(at)iucn(dot)org
>> Web: http://iucn.org/afesg/
>> --------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Josh,
I have quite a hectic schedule, but I can find some time for this
project and in particular it would be nice if we could get some Kenyan
engineers involved. I knew quite a few who were passionate about
PostgreSQL and who used it when I was back there.

.githogori.

On Tuesday 22 November 2005 10:52, Githogori Nyangara-Murage wrote:
> I have quite a hectic schedule, but I can find some time for this
> project and in particular it would be nice if we could get some Kenyan
> engineers involved. I knew quite a few who were passionate about
> PostgreSQL and who used it when I was back there.
>

Hi Githogori,

We've created a project page at http://pgfoundry.org/projects/wilddb/ that you
can point people towards. If you could sign up on the site and send me your
info, we'd be happy to add you to the project. This goes for any of your
friends as well. Thanks in advance.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL