Highlights for February 28, 2002

I. Key Department/Bureau News

• USGS GAP Analysis Program Recognized by NSDL: Read by thousands of people each week, the National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library Report for the Life Sciences (NSDL) has selected the USGS GAP Analysis Program to spotlight as its research resource in the February 22 (1:3) issue. The US Geological Survey's Gap Analysis Program (GAP) is a cooperative project that attempts to map land cover and vertebrate species distribution in order to enhance conservation land management activities. NSDL is a NSF funded digital library project that offers high quality information about science resources for academics, researchers, librarians, and educators. The Scout Report team at UW-Madison, a nationally-recognized cataloguer of top research resources on the Web, develops the NSDL site. The full issue is available at http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/nsdl-reports/. (Lisa Zolly, Reston, 703/648-4277)

• Applications of Gap Analysis Available: The US Geological Survey's Gap Analysis Program (GAP) is a cooperative project that attempts to map land cover and vertebrate species distribution in order to enhance conservation land management activities. The GAP Web site has recently undergone some significant improvements, including adding links to regional applications of GAP. Additions include Colorado, Utah, European forests, Washington State, and the Circumpolar Protected Area Network (CPAN). Each link contains a different presentation of how GAP is being used in that geographic area. www.gap.uidaho.edu/applications/applications.htm (John Mosesso, Reston, 703/648-4079)

II. Agency Work on Presidential Initiatives

• NBII Working with the Global Forest Information Service: March 8-12, 2002, USGS NBII Implementation Coordinator, Sharon Shin, will report on NBII information dissemination experiences to the Global Forest Information Service Task Force in Curitiba, Brazil at GFIS’s semi-annual meeting. The National Biological Information Infrastructure a broad collaborative program that provides increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII links diverse high quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry. By relating experiences, NBII hopes to assist GFIS in their mission to provide forest data and information to various users via the Internet. Ms. Shin was named to the task force in February 2002. (Sharon Shin, Denver, 303-202-4230)

III. Notable Congressional Activity
Nothing to report this week.

IV. Press/Media Inquiries
Nothing to report this week.

V. Key FOIA Requests
Nothing to report this week.