The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the most comprehensive global spatial dataset on marine and terrestrial protected areas available. The 2010 version of the data were published earlier this year.

You can use Google Earth to digitize roads and more. I have written a small document describing how this can be done.

The site www.ifitwasmyhome.com shows the Gulf oil spill with an overlay of the Gulf (BP) oil spill, to give a better impression of the spill's size. I made three images and uploaded to the 'temporary' gallery on this site, showing Zanzibar and the Luangwa Valley in addition to the Arusha example shown in the article opened by pressing "Read more".

We moved the server to a new site in May. The upgrade is still pending, but we aim to do that change sometime in June or July. Upgrading is not a thing to take lightly on.

Today I found myself struggling at work. I had to calculate the area of a suggested protected area - land area only. This was in Norway. We have a couple of floating Spatial Analyst licenses at work. Looking for the right tool in ArcGIS toolbox is no fun. If you are not running a cracked version you are often exposed to your inferior license. QGIS saved the day!

We have made a couple of TIFF hillshade files and made them available for download. The files were generated using 90 m SRTM version 4.1 data. Currently available are Botswana, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

QGIS has taken a giant leap forward. This time it is particularly the vector editing tools which the QGIS team has made much better. This and many other changes brings QGIS closer to replace the ArcGIS product from Esri in some cases.

The GSDI Association, along with partners and participants has allocated resources from the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee and the GISCorps of URISA to fund a small grant program to support national or sub-national activities that foster partnerships, develop in-country technical capacity, improve data compartibility and access, and increase political support for spatial data infrastructure and earth observations application development. Could this be an opportunity on the Tanzanian Scene?

BIOTA AFRICA is a project jointly invented by African and German researchers. Their aim is the establishment of research supporting sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity in Africa. This is not unlike so many other projects on a local, regional and continental level in Africa. Read on for more details.

NEMA in Uganda has together with GRID Arendal and UNEP pulished a report am interesting report: "''Best Practices in Environmental Information Management in Africa : The Uganda Case Study"