How do you gain the trust of fishermen to accurately map where they haul in the best catch? That’s a tricky problem that Oregon-based environmental organization Ecotrust undertook to provide more accurate maps of coastal fishing zones. Central to the effort was a means to keep the data as protected and anonymous as possible. And on the other hand, the group gained their trust by promoting their interests in siting marine reserves and future sites for wave power generation in areas that aren’t valuable fishing grounds.
The Mellon Foundation awarded Ecotrust $50,000 in recognition of their mapping efforts. Ecotrust was vigilant on the data collection and validity of data through one-on-one interviews with boat captains that incorporated a creative approach.
“Fishermen basically get 100 “pennies” to put wherever they want, to demonstrate the value of different fishing spots. They can put them all in one place, or spread them around the map.”
Read more details about the approach and the utility of the solution in a story from OPB News here.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
It’s worth mentioning that Open OceanMap, the tool that received the award, is free and open source, which is a requirement for the Mellon Award. The idea of course is to make the tool available to the larger community to use and extend for their own purposes and improve the product overall.
The desktop version is based on Quantum GIS and QT/PyQt. Without the fine work of those communities, this tool wouldn’t exist.
More information on Open OceanMap can be found here:
http://www.ecotrust.org/ocean/OpenOceanMap.html
Props to Aaron Racicot, now with Z-Pulley, the original developer of Open OceanMap.