Supporting the Conservation Lands Foundation

Report by Alexis Handelman

The Conservation Lands Foundation (CLF) is a nonprofit umbrella organization comprised of over 60 grassroots “Friends” groups who work to protect public lands. The mission of CLF is to protect, restore and expand the National Conservation Lands through education, advocacy and partnerships.

In an effort to help CLF friends groups make data informed decisions, I created a few sample surveys using Survey123. Survey123 is an easy way to create user-friendly, public, form-based surveys that are backed with the power of GIS. These sample surveys are intended to be used by CLF to showcase to their Friends groups how Survey123 can engage the public to facilitate data collection. The sample surveys include a survey for locations of trail maintenance, a survey to indicate if water features are wet or dry in Agua Fria National Monument, and a survey that can be used by the Junior Ranger program.

In order to help CLF visualize the current political climate and make decisions from a political, data-driven perspective, I built a national level story map of BLM land with political boundaries. This story map has a tab to view national conservation lands as well as political boundaries and party affiliations, and locations of military installations throughout the United States.

Lastly, to help showcase the work the CLF has done and highlight how far-reaching their influence is, I created a CLF Grants story map. This story map shows where CLF funding has been put to use in each state over the last decade. Each tab summarizes a different year and shows how much funding each state received that year. The story map really highlights CLF’s growth over the last decade.