This document provides an overview of a project to crowd-source data from caretakers to monitor protected nature areas in Germany. It discusses establishing a network of caretakers who will collect data on threats and conservation actions for protected sites. The caretakers will submit annual reports to the NABU office, which will use the data to report to the EU commission and help enforce environmental laws. The document outlines the key stakeholders in the project, including caretakers, the public, experts, and the NABU coordinator. It also analyzes considerations for designing effective touchpoints between the stakeholders and databases. Next steps include interviews with potential caretakers and workshops to further develop the framework.

1. Crowd-sourcing data
to track and survey
activities and development
of nature protection areas.

2. Done so far
Meeting with my partner in Berlin
Expert interviews about monitoring & caretaker networks
Refined & narrowed down project focus
Figured out main stakeholders
Preliminary framework & blueprint of the service
Contacted interview partners
Tons of reading...

3. National Parks - 0,54 %
Natural reserves - 3,6 %
Protected landscapes - 28,5 %
All data refers to terrestrial sites only. Source: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation
I want to start with a quick wrap-up of my project, to give you some basic insights what i am doing this for...
There are different protection area programmes in Germany
They cover the land to different extents - In general one can say, the stronger the protection, the less area is
protected. For instance, in a national park, at least 75% needs to be left untouched by humans, where in a
protected landscape, construction is allowed to a certain degree...
As you can see, real protection does only exist for a very small part in Germany...That situation is similar in many
other european countries: Sweden, which was the first European Country that designated National Parks in 1909,
today has 29 National Parks, that cover 1,64 % of the country. Together with the swedish natural reserves, around
12% are protected, at least...

4. Important Bird Areas
(IBA) - 22,2 %
Special Protection Areas
(SPA) - 16,8 %
Areas of Special Community Interest
(SCI) - 15,3 %
All data refers to terrestrial sites only. Source: European Commission, BirdLife International
During the last decades, the European commission created a network of protected areas in all over Europe (called
Natura 2000), that covers way more land in Germany and is established in European law (The so called „Birds-
Directive“ and „Habitats Directive“ . So, the network consists of two different kinds of areas, sites based on bird-
protection, and sites based on the protection of other animals and plants.

5. Important Bird Areas
(IBA) - 22,2 %
Special Protection Areas
(SPA) - 16,8 %
Areas of Special Community Interest
(SCI) - 15,3 %
All data refers to terrestrial sites only. Source: European Commission, BirdLife International
Even before that, international Non-government organizations like BirdLife already established protection area
programs, like the IBA program.
And as those NGO programs already provided very detailed data, the protection critera served as a template for
the Natura 2000 programs.

6. STATE
Quantity
and Quality
PRESSURE RESPONSE
Threats Actions
To successfully protect the sites, there is a need to monitor three different things:
1. The status of the sites. Thats basically counting the specimen of all protected species in the site, most
importantly the ones who are responsible for the area to be protected.
2. The factors that could threaten the site, for example construction, farming, logging or pollution...
3. The actions taken to protect the site, for example the removal of a drainage...

7. STATE
Quantity
and Quality
PRESSURE RESPONSE
Threats Actions
As a matter of law, the government (In Germany thats the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation) is responsible
to collect the data about the STATE of a site.
The problem is: That‘s all.
They don‘t really care about changes. If they count 5 pairs of a certain bird this year, that‘s fine for them, no
matter if there were 50 pairs two years earlier.
That‘s why NGO‘s need to take care of that. They collect data on threats (PRESSURE) and on what is done to avert
them (RESPONSE)

8. 79.096,14 km²
40 211.44 km² 540 IBA
33 402.66 km²
737 SPA
4 605 SCI
All data refers to terrestrial sites only. Source: European Commission, BirdLife International
This is how the natural protection areas overlap in Germany. As a reminder, SPA and SCI are areas protected by
EU law.
As you see, the IBA network covers the biggest area, but is less scattered, as it‘s number of sites is lower.

9. 65% of all IBA‘s are also designated
as SPA‘s, thus they are protected
by EU law.
65%
65% of all IBA‘s are also designated as SPA‘s, thus they are protected by EU law.
The priority for my project is on those areas. The aim is, to apply my projects outcome on those sites first, and
later extend it to other protection area programmes.

10. In 2014, NABU will have a network
of caretakers that collect data on
threats (PRESSURE) and taken
actions (RESPONSE) in those sites.
Source: GIS data from NABU, SPA and IBA sites in Germany
Until 2014 BirdLife, and it‘s national partner, NABU, will establish a network of caretakers to get a clear picture
about what is going on in the protected areas.
Those caretakers are in the field regularly and collect data about pressure and response...

11. The caretakers provide annual
reports to the federal NABU office
in Berlin.
The caretakers will create a report with the help of the collected data once a year,
and submit it to the NABU headquarters in Berlin

12. Every second/fourth/sixth year the NABU
reports to the EU commission, using the
data collected by the caretakers.
The data collected by the caretakers will be used for different reports the NABU sends regulary to the EU
commission in Brussels.

13. The European commission can use
the reports to enforce EU law.
In the end, this is how the European Union can enforce law and acchieve protection...

14. PRE-SERVICE SETUP OF DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION
PHASE DATABASE AND SUBMISSION RETRIEVAL
REPORTING
hiring & training input of existing data monitoring filtering
marketing reporting visualization
As a result of the meeting I had with my partner in Berlin, I identified a number of steps needed to realize the
project...

15. PRE-SERVICE BUILDING AND MAINTAINANCE DATA COLLECTION & INFORMATION REPORTING
PHASE OF DATABASE SUBMISSION RETRIEVAL
workshops,
job-platform guidelines, admin tools admin tools monitoring tools online platform coordinator
TOUCHPOINT NABU-network marketing tools tools
hire caretakers teaching, caretaker access write report send report
marketing support database to EU commission
NABU-OFFICE
submit yearly
monitor report on
learn about
protection PRESSURE &
the system
areas RESPONSE
CARETAKER
monitor submit loose
learn about
protection reports
the system
areas
DEVELOPER MOIN BfN NABU
PUBLIC
provide &
set up system provide public support
maintain GIS
STATE data
data
EXPERTS
data input in
provide GIS & database
programming job interviews
BACKGROUND STATE data (PRESSURE&
“headhunting” information
PROCESS RESPONSE)
data input in
SUPPORT database answer questions,
PROCESS (STATE) guidance
Based on those steps i mapped out a more detailed blueprint and figured out the main stakeholders.

16. PRE-SERVICE BUILDING AND MAINTAINANCE DATA COLLECTION & INFORMATION REPORTING
PHASE OF DATABASE SUBMISSION RETRIEVAL
workshops,
job-platform guidelines, admin tools admin tools monitoring tools online platform coordinator
TOUCHPOINT NABU-network marketing tools tools
hire caretakers teaching, caretaker access write report send report
marketing support database to EU commission
NABU-OFFICE
submit yearly
monitor report on
learn about
protection PRESSURE &
the system
areas RESPONSE
CARETAKER
monitor submit loose
learn about
protection reports
the system
areas
DEVELOPER MOIN BfN NABU
PUBLIC
provide &
set up system provide public support
maintain GIS
STATE data
data
EXPERTS
data input in
provide GIS & database
programming job interviews
BACKGROUND STATE data (PRESSURE&
“headhunting” information
PROCESS RESPONSE)
data input in
SUPPORT database answer questions,
PROCESS (STATE) guidance
I also narrowed down my project focus quite a bit.. My task is mostly designing the touchpoints and bringing the
different stakeholders in touch with each other.

17. BfN NABU FEDERAL OFFICE (COORDINATOR) NABU STATE ASSOCIATIONS
(Federal Agency NABU DISTRICT GROUPS
of Nature Conservation)
COORDINATOR
SECTION
ADMIN DATABASES
SECTION GIS STATE - PRESSURE - RESPONSE
EXPERTS
CARETAKER PUBLIC
SECTION SECTION
CARETAKER PUBLIC USERS
This is a framework I created together with my partner, and it shows which touchpoints are most relevant for my
project.
In the center, there are the geographical database, and the database about STATE, PRESSURE and RESPONSE
The stakeholders access the database in different ways, so they all need to have distinct touchpoints that server
for their particular purpose..

18. NABU
CARETAKER PUBLIC EXPERTS
COORDINATOR
As you saw already in the previous slides, the main stakeholders i figured out are
the caretakers,
public users,
the NABU office
and some experts.

19. NABU
CARETAKER PUBLIC EXPERTS
COORDINATOR
individual or group in the field monitoring analysis of database desktop maintainance
regular in the field monitoring sporadic reporting editing of data based on
expert knowledge
annual desktop reporting
biannual reporting to EU
(local contact for a site)
Taking to different people at the NABU office in Berlin, i learned a lot about other caretaker programs they have,
and about their experiences with them, which are pretty diverse...
The stakeholders have pretty distinct tasks in the service, so the touchpoint will be used in very different ways,
though there are some commonalities...

20. NABU
CARETAKER PUBLIC EXPERTS
COORDINATOR
Picture: NABU, L. Giebel Picture: Google Streetview
One example for that is, that the caretakers and public users are mostly out in the field, but the coordinators
work in the office in Berlin.

21. CARETAKER
How to motivate them to go
out in the field regularly?
How to make them feel
responsible for „their“ site?
How to provide appropriate
knowledge to them?
How to make them create
correct, objective reports?
Throughout the talks i had in berlin, i figured out different aspects of the users, that will be important to solve in
the next phase...
One important issue is, for instance, the voluntariness of the caretaker job: They dont earn any money and do not
get refunded for traveling in their area - so it is important to find out how to motivate them and make them feel
responsible...
to find out more about that i am planning to do interviews with some of the people who, most likely will
volunteer as caretakers from next year on.

22. PUBLIC How to make them aware
of protections sites?
How to let them know if they
actually are in a protected area?
How to let them know why
it is a protected area?
The public users are probably the biggest group of stakeholders - for them it is most important to get
information, but they may also want to report things...

23. NABU
COORDINATOR
How to pre-process and
visualize the needed data?
How to help with evaluating
the data reliability?
How to make the editing
of data convienient?
The coordinator (and my partner at the same time) is the main recipient of all the data and responsible to make
sense of it and transform it into information that may be used later..
On the one hand, he needs a tool, that provides pre-processed and visualized data, on the other hand he needs
to be able to edit the data, because he is the expert who knows how to „smooth out“ some of the exaggerations
some times...

24. EXPERTS
How to make the maintainence
of the system convenient?
How to create a system that
can be maintained without
external help?
last but not least, there will be some experts who are responsible for the maintenance of the whole system - they
are important as well, mostly for the „backbone“ part of my project...

25. Other things I looked into
EU-directives (bird-directive & habitat directive)
IBA / SPA criteria to evaluate sites
international criteria to monitor species
other monitoring programs
some technical details (database implementation, GIS...)
In the last weeks I learned about a lot of other things, some more specific to the protection program my project
will aim at
and some more general, like how other monitoring programs work and what issues they do have to face...

26. Next steps
Interviews with caretakers
Workshop about the public aspect of my project
Synthesize findings and refine framework & blueprint
Closer contact to developers
Widen the perspective on possible solutions
Keep on ideating...