PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSERVATION COMMONS Principle 1- Open Access: The Conservation Commons promotes free and open access to data, information and knowledge for conservation purposes. Principle 2- Mutual Benefit: The Conservation Commons welcomes and encourages participants both to use resources and to contribute data, information and knowledge. Principle 3- Rights and Responsibilities: Contributors to the Conservation Commons have full right to attribution for any uses of their data, information, or knowledge, and the right to ensure that the original integrity of their contribution to the Commons is preserved. Users of the Conservation Commons are expected to comply, in good faith, with terms of uses specified by contributors and in accordance with these Principles.

Northbay Environmental Information Commons northbaycommons.net Regional agencies and non-profits collaborating to build an environmental information network that supports our shared mission.

Participants Contributors: Bay Area Open Space Council Army Corps of Engineers Sonoma Ecology Center Sonoma County Water Agency San Francisco Estuary Institute MIG, Inc. Institute for Fisheries Resources San Francisco Bay Joint Venture Bodega Marine Lab North Bay Watershed Association UCD Information Center for the Environment CA Resources Agency CERES Also Interested: Sonoma, Napa Co. GIS Depts. California Coastal Conservancy Russian River Watershed Council Sonoma County Ag. Preservation & Open Space District Napa Co. Watershed Information Center and Conservancy Commonweal Ocean Policy Program Sonoma Land Trust Marin Audubon Society Urban Creeks Council East Bay Watershed Center

Northbay Commons Effort to Date Educated the community about need for free and open enviro information Adopted Conservation Commons Principles, drafting a Charter Open information exchange using data standards (project metadata) Collaborative technology development Combining resources for support and training

Invasive Plant Information Commons Urgent need to coordinate data from many sources Want to use GeoRSS and semantic web technology for sharing species observations, other data types Applications- networking, live distribution maps, early detection/rapid response

Environmental Information Semantic Web Orgs and experts Projects Bibliographic Species obs Taxonomic People Projects Data Orgs

Needs Funding and collaboration with Semantic Web researchers, computer scientists Working solutions for: –Creating, managing, and publishing metadata and vocabularies –Aggregation, creating linkages between highly distributed, ever-changing data