Latest Contributions by CharlesConvis

Sean’s Query: GIS for Queers (this essay was written in 2020 by friend and colleague of many years,  Sean Dunnington, (he, him) storyteller, playwright and LGBTQ+ activist. Like many activists, Sean uses the reclaimed term "queer" in talking about his community. ) Why should GIS matter to Queer People? For the last two decades, cartographers, geographers, and scholars have been exploring the semantics of queer geography, an integrative approach to queer theory and spatial analytics that examines the social relationships of sexuality, place, and space. I employ queer as an elastic term that includes all dissident sexualities and peoples, but I like to think of it as a ‘zone of possibilities’ that rejects binary definition and deconstructs heteronormative identities, practices, and knowledge. [1] When applying geographic information systems to this zone, we are, as Jack Dangermond once put it, ‘limited only by the imagination of those who use it.’ So, what happens when Queers use GIS? Short answer: we queer space. Of course, ‘space is not naturally authentically “straight” but rather actively produced and (hetero)sexualized.’ [2] In queering space, we occupy and colonize (hetero)sexualized space, yielding both a resistance and a home for Queers. [3] Unlike many gay and queer spaces, which extend the normative within the borders of (hetero)sexualized space, queer space transgresses the normative and challenges (hetero)sexualized space. [4] Even when Queers no longer inhabit space, we can still mark it by its ‘battles fought over the social, political and cultural meanings attributed to the existence of [Queers],’ but in order to spatially historicize and archive queer space, we must place it on the map. [5] As Jacques Derrida denotes in Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression: ‘There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory.’ [6] Much like our history books, maps are byproducts of power-knowledge. [7] So, when Queers challenge and appropriate the framework of GIS technology, we elevate marginalized narratives and use data to rethink, redraw, reclaim, and remap bodies, space and geography. [1] Through this process of spatial archiving, we reframe our relationship with placelessness, a phenomenon that LGBTQ people experience frequently. [2] With the decline of gay and queer bars, assimilation of queer spaces, and gentrification of LGBTQ neighborhoods, it’s no wonder we feel an absence of permanent place. [3] But when we utilize GIS to visually represent and narrativize just how much space we inhabit, we reframe our understanding of queer belonging and place. As the Gay and queer Atlas puts it, ‘we are everywhere.’ [4] When we queer geography and cartography, we redefine our place on the map. When we queer geographic information systems, we relearn space as intrinsically queer. Although, I must acknowledge that while queer space disrupts heterosexual space, it seldom disrupts racialized, gendered, and classed spaces. [5] Additionally, in terms of research and literature, queer space typically implies white and male space, or homomasculine space. [6] This is one of the limits that queer GIS has faced, but with the right users, it’s also one that can crack. Furthermore, queer GIS lays the groundwork for possibility beyond sexualized space, because like identity, space intersects with all aspects of itself simultaneously. Utilizing the integration of queer theory and spatial analytics, GIS users can address queer issues such as transnational labor flows, diaspora, racism, immigration, public health, globalization, domesticity, geopolitics and poverty. [1] We can document history, activism, violence, legislation, communities, and local LGBTQ+ businesses in order to not only understand progress, but challenge and better it. Using spatial narrative, we can even visualize and share stories of our people. As historian Joan Nestle poses it: ‘We need to know that we are not accidental, that our culture has grown and changed with the currents of time, that we, like others have a social history comprised of individual lives and community struggles.’ [2] We must use GIS to queer and complicate spatial narratives, as well as the pedagogy of heteronormative spatial thinking and understanding. We must queer GIS to include ourselves on the map, because if we don’t, who will?   [1] Edelman, L. (1994). Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory. New York: Routledge. [2] Binnie, J. (1997). Coming out of geography: towards a Queer epistemology? Environment and Planning Society and Space, 15, 223. [3] Valentine, G. (2003). Sexual politics. In Agnew, J., Mitchell, K. and Toal, G., editors, A companion to political geography, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 417. [4] Browne, K. (2006). Challenging Queer geographies. Antipode 38, 885–93. [5] Nash, C.J. (2006). Toronto’s gay village (1969–1982): plotting the politics of gay identity. The Canadian Geographer, 50, 1–16. [6] Derrida, J., & Prenowitz, E. (1996). Archive fever: A Freudian impression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [7] Crampton, J. W. (2001). Maps as social constructions: power, communication and visualization. Progress in Human Geography, 25(2), 235–252. [8] Duggan, L. (2003). The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural politics and the attack on democracy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. [9] Knopp, L. (2004). Ontologies of Place, Placelessness, and Movement: Queer Quests for Identity and Their Impacts on Contemporary Geographic Thought. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 11, no. 1, 121–134. [10] Mattson, G. (2019). Are Gay Bars Closing? Using Business Listings to Infer Rates of Gay Bar Closure in the United States, 1977–2019. Socius; Casey, M. (2004). De-dyking Queer Space(s): Heterosexual Female Visibility in Gay and Queer Spaces. Sexualities, 7(4), 446–461; and Doan, P. L., & Higgins, H. (2011). The Demise of Queer Space? Resurgent Gentrification and the Assimilation of LGBT Neighborhoods. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 31(1), 6–25. [11] Knopp, L. (2005). The Gay and Queer Atlas. Annals of The Association of American Geographers. [12] Puar, J.K. (2002). A transnational feminist critique of Queer tourism. Antipode 34, 936. [13] Elder, G. (2004). Love for sale: marketing gay male p/leisure space in contemporary Cape Town, South Africa. In Nelson, L. and Seager, J., editors, A companion to feminist geography, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 585. [14]   Oswin, N. (2008). “Critical Geographies and the Uses of Sexuality: Deconstructing Queer Space,” Progress in Human Geography 32, no. 1. 89-103 [15] Nestle, Joan. (1983). Voices from Queer herstory. The Body Politic 96:35–36. ... View more

(part of the new Esri Conservation "Inclusive History of Conservation GIS" website project)     Like many commentators & historians I've listened to, I agree that 2020 will be an historic year, probably the most impactful in my 66 year life.  Many of the reasons are bad ones, though some of the most important reasons are good ones, such the widest national protests ever and the beginning of important yet difficult national conversations and institutional changes.   One of these conversations is about racial privilege, an assumed set of comfort and safety features for a dominant culture that they never talk about, but that are obvious and problematic for other cultures.  It's like getting on a plane where everyone is forced to stand there and memorize the entire safety card front to back before they can board, except privileged passengers, who enjoy the unspoken assumption that in the event of a water landing they'll be rescued first.     It's a difficult topic for privileged people to talk about, with plenty of negative shame labels like "guilt" or "snowflake" to keep the topic hidden.  It's also difficult to survive and feel safe in my country if you are not privileged, that's what day after day of peaceful protests are trying to tell us.  There is also an uncomfortable confusion between the idea of talking about one's "privileges" and boasting about oneself, something that people of good conscience try to avoid.   This same confusion has come up in relation to my 31 years at Esri.   Esri has led the GIS world in innovation and a thriving user community for over 40 years.  It has done this using a technical architecture first created and implemented by Scott Morehouse in the 1970's.  To my knowledge, there is no other technical architecture or product line which has been an effective industry standard for so many years.  Microsoft Word comes close, yet it's first release in 1990 was still 8 years after ArcINFO ver 1.  But development genius is only part of the story. There are many development geniuses in tech, what made Esri unique was a different kind of corporate culture.  The norm in tech culture is inspired leaders who express a vision for the future and work to motivate everyone to achieve that vision.  I once heard Jack Dangermond say that this was a perfectly acceptable way to run a company, It just wasn't his way.  What Jack told me next was what made Esri so different.  Jack described his notion of what true leadership was: the higher you rise in an institution, and the more authority you have, the more you must recognize that that authority arises from all of the people around you, at all levels, and the more you must place their needs above yours, dedicate yourself to working for them, in their service, on their behalf.   Jack's model is to be constantly building up the people around him so that they could be effective leaders.  One aspect of this culture was the reluctance by Jack or other Esri leadership to give interviews or talk about themselves.  This was more than simple modesty.  It was a deeply held belief that the real GIS stories weren't about them, they were about all of these other people, especially Esri's users, and the hard work they all did, the obstacles they overcame.  This tradition thrives even now as an important part of the annual conference plenary, where the story of GIS is told through a dozen or so slides of user stories.  By comparison, In 31 years of user conferences I have yet to see even a single slide about Jack Dangermond or any of the other Esri leaders.  Interviews began to be tolerated about 10 years ago in part because at a certain point, Esri's users themselves began to ask for them. Jack's concept of leadership also affected my ideas about starting a new international nonprofit devoted to serving the conservation user community.   In my case the decision was to never serve on the board of directors, but instead work within the committees, helping them to succeed and to help new leaders to emerge.  This was a complex task even for the most selfless of workers, which I was not.  My success in this "leading from underneath" has ranged from decent to at times awful.  Still, the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) has survived and grown for over 30 years, despite being 100% volunteer run. My greatest personal failure in all those years was my inability to include tribal & First Nations people in this Society.  My initial proposals & charters talked equally about supporting First Nations communities with conservation groups.  In my grant-making work at Esri  it was no problem to make the first grants of GIS technology to many hundreds of tribal organizations in the 90's, helping them begin on the road to GIS capability.  But I was never able to match that success when it came to the people and professionals who would want to be part of the Society.  That was a  lesson in racial privilege, hidden things about me that affected my relationships with communities of color, and that made it impossible for me to create a safe and welcoming societal environment for them. As noble as the goals of modesty & leading from behind may be at first sight, they are also outwardly similar to the same silence that keeps racial privilege hidden.  The motives are different to be sure, but the outward appearance is the same. I had much to learn about this.   The breakthrough began in 2018 when Janice Thompson, the head of GIS for Wilderness Society, began a new initiative within SCGIS called "Mapping for Advocacy".  Wilderness Society is like the Sierra Club in it's commitment to diversity, so for Janice the word "Advocacy" was as much about social justice as it was about conservation. Together with Sandra Coveny, a GIS consultant specializing in tribal resilience planning, the SCGIS Tribal & First Nations program began that same year, with invited speakers from several US tribal organizations.  I was honored to be part of that first panel. What I learned then was that there is a longstanding tradition among tribal & First Nations people that any gathering must begin with heartfelt introductions.  These are not typical western introductions of name & employer or job.  Instead, each person must tell who your ancestral people were, what landscape they are from and how you honor & represent them today.  As was explained to me, before anyone can understand the words you are about to say, they need to first understand who you are as a human being.   It was the first time I got to have a glimpse of what a world might look like where people of many cultures had empathy and understanding for one another.   I get it now why this is such an important tradition for helping a gathering of people feel respected and heard, no matter what their origins and life experiences may have been.   The fact that this cultural shift was finally beginning to happen in a Society devoted to the tools and practices of GIS made it all the more significant.  In the same way that GIS was able to change natural history from a narrative tradition into a quantitative, predictive ecological science, my hope is that GIS can also help communities of every kind work together to identify bias and privilege wherever it exists and support one another in innovative & sustainable solutions.  Towards that end, I hope to return with additional columns & essays in the coming weeks.  First however, is my introduction as I was taught to do it:   My name is Charles Convis. I am the 6th person of that name. I am responsible to my ancestors and I have studied my family genealogy since childhood. My ancestors were farmers, laborers & warriors in Europe until the late 1500's. Most of them came to America in the early 1600's, many were farmers and leaders in the Presbyterian church.  Others were leaders against injustice, creating the first written American anti-slavery protest in 1688, and fighting alongside Black Marines in the Pacific in WWII. I honor their values and try to live up to their traditions of service and justice. I now live near the mountains called Nilengli near the place called Yukaipat by the Yuhaviatam (Serrano) people, who were the first stewards of what is also called the Inland Empire of California.   My passion for conservation and my sense of self began as a child in another place, the High Sierra, first home of the Miwok & Yokuts.  This always was and still is the landscape I am in when I dream, and the place of my stewardship.   I am not neuro-typical, and this may be why I am better with machines and computers than I am with people.  I am fond of GIS and believe it offers great hope for humanity.  I am fond of photography, as it helps me to express my vision of how remarkable and beautiful are the many different people I see, even if I am afraid or unable to speak the words.  I am cisgender and a member of my country's dominant culture.   I am privileged by the society I live in, and I am just barely beginning to understand how to express myself in words that will make it safe for people different from me to hear what is in my heart and not what is in my skin.   (My deepest gratitude to my reviewers & advisors. Marsha Small (Tsistsistah (Northern Cheyenne)) advised against my many mentions of the words "white" and "black", saying that even naming skin colors reinforces colonialist divisions and barriers between people. Marsha also taught me how to properly introduce myself to others.  Ashley Du, head of the Esri ECOS Environmental initiative, helped me with editing and introduced me to the concept "intersectional environmentalism".  Sandra Coveny, tribal resilience consultant, encouraged the idea of an essay on this topic for conservation GIS readers.) xconservationhistory ... View more

Chapter 1 : Origins of Conservation: Indigenous Landscapes & Traditional Knowledge (part of the "Inclusive History of Conservation GIS")   (photo courtesy of Animesh Ghose, 2018 SCGIS scholar, Creative Conservation Alliance, Bangladesh, &  Scott Trageser of NatureStills photography)   Unlike the traditional view that conservation began in the writings of a few globally important figures, I consider it's true origins lie in the beliefs and practices of hundreds of thousands of human beings as they adapted, survived & expanded across increasingly diverse habitats that began to appear after the ice ages.  What early humans learned about the essential behaviors, social rules & living traditions of their landscapes has much to teach today to a dominant society flailing and failing to adapt and survive.   Fortunately this body of knowledge is finally beginning to be recognized and valued in modern conservation and landscape planning, in an area of the profession termed "Traditional Ecological Knowledge".   There is sometimes confusion in this term with the romantic notion that indigenous peoples lived in harmony with nature.  Harmony is a concept from privileged society which is both biologically and  historically naive.  For example, indigenous cultures in my region (westernAmerica) often set fire to the landscape.  This was not normally a catastrophic practice, it was often done in small stages to help manage natural successional processes such as ensuring reproduction for native food plants which depend upon fire in order to reproduce.  Human beings were actors and agents of change in those landscapes, just like other physical processes.  However, only human beings were able to possess a sense of responsibility and stewardship about their activities in these dynamic landscapes. For those cultures who possessed this sense of stewardship, and the centuries of knowledge that accumulated because of it, Traditional Ecological Knowledge became an important body of resources management expertise.      Storymap : Great Basin Landscape Cooperative's Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Strategy Reference Project Profile of Animesh Ghose, Creative Conservation Alliance, Bangladesh    Following these early origins among traditional peoples around the world, Conservation as an idea in written history was part of early greek & arab "natural philosophers", attempting to understand & classify the natural world, as distinct from the world of human affairs.  Separating human affairs from the consideration of nature was a schism that would characterize western science from then on.  A notable exception was the integrative work of the 9th century Islamic genius Avicenna, (see chapter 2). Conservation as an activity upon western & European landscapes first began in the middle-ages, as monarchs set game preserves aside for their exclusive use, denying or controlling access to the indigenous farmers and hunters who might once have lived or hunted there.  The pattern of a higher power making conservation decisions unilaterally to meet their own needs, thereby denying subjects & residents representation or access, is an unfortunate aspect of much early conservation work, and one of many stains from Conservation's imperialist origins  As Annika Dahlberg said in her 2010 study: "In countries where national parks were initially created to preserve perceived 'wilderness', with decisions taken by powerful elites and central authorities, this historical legacy has prevented profound change in line with new policy directives" ( Comparing access rights and ideological legacies in three countries. ." (Dahlberg A, Rohde R, Sandell K. National parks and environmental justice: Conservat Soc [serial online] 2010 [cited 2020 Jul 7];8:209-24. Available from: https://bit.ly/3e92czd)    The conflict between the goals of exclusive & often privileged protection, versus the needs of landscape residents, remains a relevant topic of concern today.  Conservation policies are still often created at high levels of society, meant to address conservation concerns of national or global populations.  Yet they are often resisted by those who actually have to live in the affected landscapes, and who may not believe or share the global concerns meant to be addressed.  Sometimes the opposite is true, local populations may be first to feel the deadly impacts of a global environmental collapse, and begin the battle to address the crisis and save their homes.  But their own national governments may fail to acknowledge that a crisis even exists, and fail to support small constituencies well down the ladder of political power,.   This is especially true of the current advance of climate change and sea level rise, where oceanic islands and First Nation Arctic villages are seeing their homes and lands vanishing rapidly, sometimes under  governments who still deny that climate change is even real. Storymap  Climate Change And the Effect on the Inuit Peoples and the Arctic  by MEE-KYUNG LEGAULT Storymap: "Telling a Story (Map): Indigenous Peoples and the Arctic Council" by GRID-Arendal Storymap: "Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative Projects Map Series"  by the Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative (Photo: Community Conservation Planning project in Pakistan, courtesy of Doost Ali Nawaz, SCGIS Pakistan) This important aspect of supporting locally-based conservation knowledge & education work in planning and managing a natural landscape is variously called "Stakeholders" or "Public Participation Planning" and takes in many different kinds of local stewardship.   It is an ongoing process of specifically including local residents of an area, as early as possible, and with as much ownership & authority as possible, in the discussion and creation of conservation plans or policies upon a local landscape.  Stakeholder relationships are similar in some ways to Traditional Ecological Knowledge, in that it is always important to acknowledge and involve many kinds of local residents, from the original ancestral stewards to the current occupants. .It is also an important professional practice that begins to address this aspect of institutionalized inequity.    Storymap : "Citizens Participation The aim of Geodesign is to adapt communities to their sustainable geography and not the other way around"   by GDS Latam     GIS tools are becoming ever more critical in the spread and success of Public Participation Planning.  GIS as a technology addresses several key obstacles and concerns about this kind of planning approach: the informal nature of much traditional knowledge, the need for local collaboration, and the need to build local planning & GIS capacity.  Traditional knowledge is often from oral narratives and therefore difficult to acquire, process, evaluate and apply to spatial analyses and visualizations.  The strong data model foundations of ArcGIS and its multi-media capabilities, with tools like full motion video,  allow recordings to be captured, spatially defined, classified and formalized in ways that permit wider use in planning and analysis.   The collaborative nature of cloud GIS and citizen science applications like Survey123 make it easy to put local experts in charge of important organizing and management tasks at the lead of any local planning effort.  Finally, the ease with which cloud and mobile GIS apps can be learned and taught makes it possible to build essential GIS capacity among local communities quickly, allowing them to decide for themselves how to carry out the incorporation of their own local traditions and knowledge into the planning effort.  One of the best examples of rapid deployment of community-led GIS capacity, created & led by GIS novices, is the free Community Response Hubs set up by thousands of local governments to help in response to the 2020 covid-19 pandemic. Storymap : " Transcending Boundaries in Conservation "  by African People & Wildlife     Helping build local capacity, and letting the local & indigenous people lead, and speak, and be respected, is always the right first step.  As the official indigenous delegates to the 5th World Parks Congress said "The declaration of protected areas on indigenous territories without our consent and engagement has resulted in our dispossession and resettlement, the violation of our rights, the displacement of our peoples, the loss of our sacred sites and the slow but continuous loss of our cultures, as well as impoverishment. It is thus difficult to talk about benefits for Indigenous Peoples when protected areas are being declared on our territories unilaterally. First we were dispossessed in the name of kings and emperors, later in the name of State development and now in the name of conservation."   (photo: Ranthambore National Park)   Even within the imperial history of conservation areas there are interesting stories.  Protecting nature was not originally a western idea. Bogd Khan Mountain in Mongolia has the first written record of formal protection, when it was set aside in the 1200's by the ruler Tooril (Toghrul) Khan.  It was later officially gazetted by the local civil government of the Qing Dynasty "for it's beauty" in 1783.    Rajastan, India  is better known as one of the last refuges for wild tigers, and when the forests around Fort Ranthambore were first closed off in the 1600's by the Maharajas of Jaipur, they nevertheless allowed local residents access for hunting and harvesting in exchange for an annual fee.  Perhaps Ranthambore deserves credit for the origin of the idea of park admission fees. Worth noting, this period is sometimes acknowledged as the birth of the "Conservation Officer" profession, called Game Wardens or Gamekeepers at the time.  These were Individuals whose profession was the monitoring & protection of game species within the reserve from illegal poaching.   Perhaps the most famous exemplar of this profession was the Sheriff of Nottingham, arch-foe of Robin Hood, another fact which has not helped Conservation move beyond an image of elitism and exclusivity.  In the 1800's, formal national parks as we know them today began forming all over the world.  Below is a selected list of important & historical firsts, illustrating the diversity of nations, cultures and ethnicities involved. (Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley, late 1800's) 1872   Yellowstone National Park USA  first American national park.  (These were lands previously occupied by Shoshone, Bannock, Crow & Nez Perce tribes, for whom an 1868 treaty had guaranteed the rights of continued access and use for hunting, subsistence, medicinal plants and religious ceremonies.  The University of British Colombia has a detailed open case study on the current issues of indigenous rights in Yellowstone National Park and actions needed ) see also:   "AMERICAN INDIANS AND NATIONAL PARKS" by June Starr "The Story We've Been Told About America's National Parks Is Incomplete" by DINA GILIO-WHITAKER  Storymap "Violence is Daily Life: Yosemite, The National Park Service, and the Ahwaneechee" by Gabriel Michael 1876   Puerto Rico’s Caribbean National Park  One of the oldest, if not the oldest in all of Latin America. 1887    Tongariro National Park New Zealand's first national park originated as a tuku (act of customary lore) from the Ngati Tuwharetoa people of Aotearoa (New Zealand), making this also the first national park in the world to be gifted by it's indigenous people, and the first national park to be listed as protecting cultural landscapes.  It has since grown from 2,640 hectares to 25,000 hectares 1890's   First Russian Zapovednik reserves  set up by V. V. Dokuchaev  in Russia, Aldo Leopold was inspired by Dokuchaev to begin establishing an American wildlife reserve system in the 1940's. 1895   Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, is the oldest proclaimed nature reserve in Africa.  The area was initially set aside by the Zulu kings Dingiswayo and Shaka in the early 1800's, then formally gazetted as a national park in 1895. This was the decade when the British Empire took over the area, and it's assumed that the prior indigenous inhabitants were excluded from the new park  1909 Sarek National Park and Stora Sjöfallet National Park: First national parks in the world to specifically protect & honor access rights & subsistence practices for its Indigenous population, Saami people, who had lived in the area for 4000-5000 years and had first obtained legal protection in 1886. 1984 Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park, one of the first tribal parks established in Canada   2011   Frog Bay Tribal National Park,  first tribal national park in United States created by the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa   Further Reading on protected areas  &  indigenous people National parks are beautiful—but the way they were created isn’t  by Hanne Elisabeth Tidnam Canada working towards new future for Indigenous-led conservation by James Dinneen ,  2020 The People of the Glacier Lands Taken to Create US National Parks  by Peter Deneen , 2019 The Blackfeet Nation is opening its own national park, 2019  by  Samantha Weber Storymap "The Voices of Grand Canyon"  Native peoples Jim Enote (Zuni), Nikki Cooley (Navajo), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma (Hopi), Coleen Kaska, (Havasupai), and Loretta Jackson-Kelly (Hualapai) share what the Grand Canyon means to them. Wyss Campaign for Nature a $1 billion investment to "help communities, indigenous peoples, and nations conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030" .  They are also lead partners with the National Geographic Society in the "Campain for Nature"  a program to "approach biodiversity conservation in a way that fully integrates and respects indigenous leadership and indigenous rights. Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Protected Areas,  IUCN 2000    A comprehensive statement of rights, policies and case studies for Indigenous Peoples Protected Areas. The “Map of Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Natural Ecosystems in Central America”  2016, by IUCN .  In partnership with the National Geographic Society, IUCN  collected the knowledge of 3,500 indigenous people in 130 mapping workshops throughout the central America region and documented their central role in conservation.  When presented at a 2016 UN meeting, one of the traditional leaders in attendance commented ‘Thank you for making us visible"     After the success of this map, IUCN established an ArcGIS online digital cartography center to permit wider access to digital mapping resources for indigenous people.   xconservationhistory (Gratitude to Scgis Scholars Aaria Dobson-Waitere,  Animesh Ghose,  Doost Ali-Nawaz, and SCGIS leaders Janice Thomson and Sandra Coveny for the conversations, advice, mentorship and ideas  that helped create this essay) ... View more

(part of the "Inclusive History of Conservation GIS"    project) I define Conservation as the struggle for human survival on earth.  If you are not in that fight,  you are either busy dying out as a dominant species, or you are hoping to get to Mars and live in a plastic bubble. Back on my planet, Conservation is the activity of protecting earth's fundamental life processes, whose health is critical for humanity's future survival.  Those processes evolved in and depend upon intact lands & seas, and a huge  variety of other resident species who carry out ecological functions at microscopic to global scales.  Conservation is an activity, but it is inextricably bound to and empowered by the social, earth & life sciences.     Conservation is therefore a science of understanding, with the work of protecting, natural landscapes and their species from harm or extinction. Conservation includes the activities of planning, managing and restoring damaged landscapes and rare species to improve their health & survival.   Conservation equally includes the human presence upon the landscape, human rights, environmental justice, diversity & inclusion, and societal behavior to ensure that activities and policies are equitable, biologically sound and sustainable over time. We became human beings through interaction with those same landscapes, and those same other species.   Our consciousness, our knowledge and our social structures first evolved from surviving in those natural environments, and discovering that survival depended upon joining together & helping one another.   Human values are already well populated with respect, affection and reverence for other humans, ancestors, parents, children, teachers  and leaders.   We might consider a parallel aspect of Conservation to be the normal outcome of the reverence and respect that humans may feel when surrounded by intact landscapes, or in companionship with dogs & other animals.   By this argument, the origins of a Conservation ethic and the passion to protect are as old as any other defining aspect of humanity.   Conservation as a sense of reverence, and a connection to earth, is therefore innate in all humans regardless of race, religion, nation, gender, culture or identity.   It happens with every touch upon the plants in my garden, with every smell of oncoming rain or wet fur, with every sound of cattle lowing or coyotes barking.  Equally present in human history is the pattern of conflict, as groups grew larger and sought to possess other landscapes by war, and other peoples by slavery.  Empires were formed as groups became ever more powerful.  Much of traditional western history was written by the privileged beneficiaries of those empires, and Conservation history is no exception.  In the same way, Conservation practice & policy is often rooted in patterns of empire and colonialism, tainting it with racial inequities both overt and subvert.   We live in a time when global biological crises and environmental disasters are spreading at the same time as dominant governments continue to prey upon bigotry to divide and weaken civil society.  Narratives about ecology & conservation need to address this tainted history to help end  the division and alienation, no matter how unintentional,  and work to begin rebuilding the unity, trust and common vision that will be needed to address these global crises. I write this with hope, because I've been lucky enough to work in the GIS industry, which I sincerely believe to be the most integrative and powerful of all technologies  for resolving conflicts and building common, actionable visions about earth's future.   There are many technical reasons why this is so.   There are also social and historical reasons which I hope to address in this series.   for further reading: Intersectional environmentalism: an inclusive version of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people and the planet. It identifies the ways in which injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected. "Imagining Nature and Erasing Class and Race: Carleton Watkins, John Muir, and the Construction of Wilderness".   by Kevin Michael DeLuca and Anne Teresa Demo    Environmental History (2001) 6:541-560 "Shades of Darkness: Race and Environmental History". by Carolyn Merchant. Environmental History (2003) 8:380-394   "The Green Movement Is Talking About Racism? It's About Time" by Brentin Mock "The Environmental Movement Needs to Reckon with Its Racist History"  by Julian Brave NoiseCat "The Problem of 'Colonial Science'"  by Asha De Vos  (My deepest gratitude to my father Charles Convis Sr for first teaching me how conservation and social justice were deeply linked, and to my Mother Mary Anne (Crawley) Convis for constantly speaking out and teaching about the role of women in my nation's history, . Marsha Small (Tsistsistah (Northern Cheyenne)) constantly helps me correct & avoid the many words and expressions that arise from colonialist perspectives,  and  Jhon Goes in Center (Oglala Lakota) whose 2000 essay established  the framework that helped me understand the importance of Native People's perspective in any discussion of Geography & GIS   xconservationhistory ... View more

TITLE:   Breaking fire news & Realtime maps in ArcGIS experience builder Preliminary Fire Damage Assessment ,   Conducted by Calfire, released to Santa Cruz County on Aug 25, 2020 and released to the public on that date. National Firemappers Map - scroll down initial splash page to click "ok"   ( Backup Ca Fire Map: CalOES ) #FireMappers is a Crowdsourcing Collaboration of NAPSG Foundation with CEDR Digital Corps and URISA GISCorps. See also: #Firemappers Storymap. It is intended for general reference, For Evacuation guidance, PLEASE consult and follow your local law enforcement and official wildfire authorities. Your ability to follow their guidance has a huge impact upon their ability to defend your house and community from wildfire!   Teachable Moments :   3 Storymaps on Prescription Burning, the secret science that can end wildfire damage and risk Preventing Wildfires   ,   Benefits of Prescribed Burning 2020   , and   Burn Baby! Burn!   Live Wildfire Webcams , from   ALERTWildfire is a consortium of three universities -- The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), University of California San Diego (UCSD), and the University of Oregon (UO) -- providing access to state-of-the-art Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) fire cameras and associated tools to help firefighters and first responders: (1) discover/locate/confirm fire ignition, (2) quickly scale fire resources up or down appropriately, (3) monitor fire behavior through containment, (4) during firestorms, help evacuations through enhanced situational awareness, and (5) ensure contained fires are monitored appropriately through their demise. Esri Disaster Response Program   -     US Fire Reports Webmap      Esri’s Disaster Response Program (DRP) assists organizations responding to disasters or crises worldwide as part of our corporate citizenship. We support response efforts with GIS technology and disaster response expertise when an organization’s capacity is exceeded. LIVE SOCIAL MEDIA :     CZU Twitter: live 2x daily briefings ,      CAL FIRE San Mateo - Santa Cruz Unit:      The men and women of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) are dedicated to the fire protection and stewardship of over 31 million acres of California's privately-owned wildlands. In addition, the Department provides varied emergency services in 36 of the State's 58 counties via contracts with local governments.   The mission of the San Mateo County Fire Department is to protect the life, property, and natural resources of its citizens and visitors through effective emergency response, incident mitigation, preparedness, education, and prevention. LIVE NEWS MEDIA :     LOCAL PRINT (Santa Cruz Sentinel)   The  Santa Cruz Sentinel  is a daily newspaper published in Santa Cruz, California, covering Santa Cruz County, California, and owned by Media News Group. LOCAL BROADCAST (KRON TV)   Live streaming video of news, traffic, and weather for the San Francisco bay area from KRON 4 TV.     Reporters covering the Santa Cruz end of the fires include: Amy Larson: @AmyLarson25, and Reyna Harvey, @ReynaHarveyB consgis ,   consweb , wildfire,   ArcGIS Experience Builder      xfire ... View more

Geonet Name:  National Vegetation Polygons from GAP & Landfire, with California High Resolution Vegetation ArcGIS Online Link:  NPS-CNPS-PADUS-22 West ALL nodns temp fix & https2019 Description     This webmap is a collaboration between the National Park Service, California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and the California Dept of Fish and Game (CDFG). The  CNPS Vegetation Program  has worked for over 15 years to provide standards and tools for identifying and representing vegetation, as an important feature of California's natural heritage and biodiversity. Many knowledgeable ecologists and botanists support the program as volunteers and paid staff. Through grants, contracts, and grass-roots efforts, CNPS collects field data and compiles information into reports, manuals, and maps on California's vegetation, ecology and rare plants in order to better protect and manage them. We provide these services to governmental, non-governmental and other organizations, and we collaborate on vegetation resource assessment projects around the state.    CNPS is also the publisher of the authoritative Manual of California Vegetation, you can purchase a copy HERE .    To support the work of the CNPS, please JOIN NOW and become a member! The CDFG Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program develops and maintains California's expression of the National Vegetation Classification System. We implement its use through assessment and mapping projects in high-priority conservation and management areas, through training programs, and through working continuously on best management practices for field assessment, classification of vegetation data, and fine-scale vegetation mapping. HOW THE OVERLAY LAYERS WERE CREATED: Nserve and GapLC Sources:  Early shortcomings in the NVC standard led to Natureserve's development of a mid-scale mapping-friendly "Ecological Systems" standard roughly corresponding to the "Group" level of the NVC, which facilitated NVC-based mapping of entire continents.  Current scientific work is leading to the incorporation of Ecological Systems into the NVC as group and macrogroup concepts are revised.   Natureserve and Gap Ecological Systems layers differ slightly even though both were created from 30m landsat data and both follow the NVC-related Ecological Systems Classification curated by Natureserve.  In either case, the vector overlay was created by first enforcing a .3ha minimum mapping unit, that required deleting any classes consisting of fewer than 4 contiguous landsat cells either side-side or cornerwise.  This got around the statistical problem of numerous single-cell classes with types that seemed improbable given their matrix, and would have been inaccurate to use as an n=1 sample compared to the weak but useable n=4 sample.  A primary goal in this elimination was to best preserve riparian and road features that might only be one pixel wide, hence the use of cornerwise contiguous groupings.    Eliminated cell groups were absorbed into whatever neighboring class they shared the longest boundary with.  The remaining raster groups were vectorized with light simplification to smooth out the stairstep patterns of raster data and hopefully improve the fidelity of the boundaries with the landscape.  The resultant vectors show a range of fidelity with the landscape, where there is less apparent fidelity it must be remembered that ecosystems are normally classified with a mixture of visible and non-visible characteristics including soil, elevation and slope.  Boundaries can be assigned based on the difference between 10% shrub cover and 20% shrub cover.  Often large landscape areas would create "godzilla" polygons of more than 50,000 vertices, which can affect performance.  These were eliminated using SIMPLIFY POLYGONS to reduce vertex spacing from 30m down to 50-60m where possible.  Where not possible DICE was used, which bisects all large polygons with arbitrary internal divisions until no polygon has more than 50,000 vertices.    To create midscale layers, ecological systems were dissolved into the macrogroups that they belonged to and resymbolized on macrogroup.  This was another frequent source for godzillas as larger landscape units were delineate, so simplify and dice were then run again.   Where the base ecol system tiles could only be served up by individual partition tile, macrogroups typically exhibited a 10-1 or 20-1 reduction in feature count allowing them to be assembled into single integrated map services by region, ie NW, SW.    CNPS / CDFW / National Park Service Sources : (see also base service definition page) Unlike the Landsat-based raster modelling of the Natureserve and Gap national ecological systems, the CNPS/CDFW/NPS data date back to the origin of the National Vegetation Classification effort to map the US national parks in the mid 1990's.  These mapping efforts are a hybrid of photo-interpretation, satellite and corollary data to create draft ecological land units, which are then sampled by field crews and traditional vegetation plot surveys to quantify and analyze vegetation composition and distribution into the final vector boundaries of the formal NVC classes identified and classified.  As such these are much more accurate maps, but the tradeoff is they are only done on one field project area at a time so there is not yet a national or even statewide coverage of these detailed maps.  However, with almost 2/3d's of California already mapped, that time is approaching.  The challenge in creating standard map layers for this wide diversity of projects over the 2 decades since NVC began is the extensive evolution in the NVC standard itself as well as evolution in the field techniques and tools.  To create a consistent set of map layers, a master crosswalk table was built using every different classification known at the time each map was created and then crosswalking each as best as could be done into a master list of the currently-accepted classifications.  This field is called the "NVC_NAME" in each of these layers, and it contains a mixture of scientific names and common names at many levels of the classification from association to division, whatever the ecologists were able to determine at the time.  For further precision, this field is split out into scientific name equivalents and common name equivalents. MAP LAYER NAMING:   The data sublayers in this webmap are all based on the US National Vegetation Classification, a partnership of the USGS GAP program, US Forest Service, Ecological Society of America and Natureserve, with adoption and support from many federal & state agencies and nonprofit conservation groups.  The USNVC grew out of the US National Park Service Vegetation Mapping Program, a mid-1990's effort led by The Nature Conservancy, Esri and the University of California.  The classification standard  is now an international standard, with associated ecological mapping occurring around the world.   NVC is a hierarchical taxonomy of 8 levels, from top down: Class, Subclass, Formation, Division, Macrogroup, Group, Alliance, Association.    The layers in this webmap represent 4 distinct programs: 1. The California Native Plant Society/Calif Dept of Fish & Wildlife Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program (Full Description of these layers is at the CNPS MS10 Service Registration Page and Cnps MS10B Service Registration Page  .  2. USGS Gap Protected Areas Database, full description at the PADUS registration page  .  3. USGS Gap Landcover, full description below     4.  Natureserve Ecological Systems, full description below LAYER NAMING: All Layer names follow this pattern:  Source - Program - Level - Scale - Region Source - Program  = who created the data:  Nserve = Natureserve,  GapLC = USGS Gap Program Landcover Data    PADUS = USGS Gap Protected Areas of the USA program  Cnps/Cdfw = California Native Plant Society/Calif Dept of Fish & Wildlife, often followed by the project name such as:  SFhill = Sierra Foothills, Marin Open Space, MMWD = Marin Municipal Water District etc.      National Parks are included and may be named by their standard 4-letter code ie YOSE = Yosemite,  PORE = Point Reyes. Level:   The level in the NVC Hierarchy which this layer is based on: Base = Alliances and Associations   Mac = Macrogroups   Sub = Subclasses Scale:   One of 3 basic scales at which this layer will appear: Base = base scale, approx 1:1k up to 1:36k   Mid = 72k to about 500k    Out = 1m to 10m Region:   The region that this layer covers, ie   USA=USA,   WEST= western USA,  Marin = Marin County.  May not appear if redundant to the Source-Program text. LABEL & COLOR:   These overlays utilize a separate labelling layer to make it easy to include or not include labels, as needed. These are named the same as the layer they label, with "LABEL" added, and often the color used for that label layer in order to help tell them apart on the map.  Note there can be multiple different label layers for the same set of polygons, depending upon the attribute or naming style desired, ie scientific names or common names.  Finally the order of these services in the sublayers of a map service is normally designed so that ALL of the label services appear above ANY/ALL of the vector services they refer to, to prevent a vector service writing on top of a label and obscuring it. MAP LAYER CATALOG This map includes a test segment of Natureserve Ecological Systems in the US Southwest, with the following layers and sublayers: GapNsUSA BoundaryMasksALB2:    A grid showing the boundaries that define each partition tile of the national vegetation map services, with regional and state boundaries in the USGS Gap US Albers projection Padus Gap13 WM Base Scale plus Label :  (Full PADUS FGDC Metadata here)  Overlay vectors at 1k to 288k scale with separate 1k-288k Labelling services for one of 3 different attributes:  --Landowner Name: Land owner and primary entity responsible for managing parcel when ‘Manager Name’ is not attributed (e.g. USFS, State Fish and Game, City Land, TNC) standardized for the US. See MSL Owner Name Domain descriptions in PAD-US Standards Manual or geodatabase look up table for detailed descriptions. --Protected Area Type: General land owner description (e.g. Federal, Tribal, State, Private) standardized for the US. See MSL Owner Type Domain descriptions in PAD-US Standards Manual or geodatabase look up table for detailed descriptions. --GAP Conservation Status: The GAP Status Code is a measure of management intent to conserve biodiversity defined as: Status 1: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a natural state within which disturbance events (of natural type, frequency, intensity, and legacy) are allowed to proceed without interference or are mimicked through management. Status 2: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a primarily natural state, but which may receive uses or management practices that degrade the quality of existing natural communities, including suppression of natural disturbance. Status 3: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover for the majority of the area, but subject to extractive uses of either a broad, low-intensity type (e.g., logging, OHV recreation) or localized intense type (e.g., mining). It also confers protection to federally listed endangered and threatened species throughout the area. Status 4: There are no known public or private institutional mandates or legally recognized easements or deed restrictions held by the managing entity to prevent conversion of natural habitat types to anthropogenic habitat types. The area generally allows conversion to unnatural land cover throughout or management intent is unknown. See the PADUS Standards Manual for a summary of methods. PadusGAP13USA_Mid-Outer Scale:  (Full PADUS FGDC Metadata here)  Overlay vectors at a midscale vector boundary design for use at mid scales of 250k to 4m, and a solid fill polygon designed for use at national scales of 4m to 36m,   with separate Labelling services PadusGAP13 Mid-Outer scale3 Label:   Separate Labelling services for PADUS names or PADUS Types, for use at 250k to 9m GapLcNW2 Eco Base scale  (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here)    USGSS Gap Ecological Systems, served as individual national partition tiles grouped into one of 9 national sections (NW, SW, NC=North Central,  SC,  NE, SE and E=East, AK=Alaska  HI=Hawaii .  Each tile has basically only classification naming attributes, plus the original GAP gridcode used in the initial ecosystem classification.  Fields present include   Ecolsys_LU= Ecological System,  System_ID=Internal Natureserve Ecol System ID Code used for linking to Natureserve Explorer,  NVC_MACRO = NVCS Standard Macrogroup to which this ecol system belongs,  Macro_ID: Nvc standard macrogroup code, used for linking to macrogroup descriptions at the USNVC.org website,  CL=NVC Formation Class,  SC=NVC Formation Subclass,  FRM=Nvc Formation,  DIV=Division,   Gridcode and Value= Original raster cell value assignment for classification,  NVCMES= code combining all NVC codes and Ecological systems codes into one value. GapLcSW Eco Base scale   (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here)  see above GapLcNW2 Eco Base_LABEL  (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here)    Separate Labelling Service by ECOLSYS_LU for the eco base polygons described above. GapLcSW Eco Base_LABEL   Separate Labelling Service by ECOLSYS_LU for the eco base polygons described above. GapLcWEST MacBaseMid_plusLABEL   (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here)  Eco base vectors for use as map or feature services, by dissolving into Macrogroup membership (see above), then generalized for use at 72k scale and above by deleting all polygons below visible limit at 72k (ie all polygons < 36,000 m2 area (albers)).  Gap Landcover Macrogroups are then ntegrated into sections (see above) and served at both mid scales (72k-288k) and base scales (1k-36k).   The base scale service is to provide a visual map of macrogroup membership in relation to the base ecological systems themselves, by using a wider boundary symbol for macrogroups and positioning them above the base ecological systems.  The midscale vectors instead use a 1.15-point line to allow cleaner polygons permitting reasonable visibility of the basemap up to about 288k. The included Labelling service operates at both base and mid scales, from 1k out to 288k.  The "WEST" region defined in the title represents the 4 national partitions NW, SW, NC, SC that are roughly the area west of the mississippi. GapLcWEST2  Macro Outer Scale:   Gap Macrogroups as a separate map service designed for cacheing into a static service for use at scales above 288k where dynamic services are too slow, ie 500k on up to 18m GapLcWEST Macro Outer_label : Gap Macrogroup LABELS as a separate map service designed for cacheing USGS Natl Ecosys GRID:   Original solid-fill map service design for the GAP Landcover data, normal for current state of vegetation data services.  Used to allow comparisons and testing against the new ecological overlay designs. Nserve Label 72to1m SW:   A cached layer of Subclass and Macrogroup Labels   Subclass Labels - blue:   Subclass labels in blue, visible from 18 million to 2 million scale (scale bar value 300m to 30m)   Macrogroup label teal:    Macrogroup Labels in teal, visible from 1 million to 72k scale  (scale bar value 20m to .1m) Nserve 72to1m SW:    A cached layer of Subclass and Macrogroup vectors   EslfSubOut_SW:   Subclass vectors at the outer scales of 18 million to 2 million   EslfMacMid_SW:   Macrogroup vectors at the middle scales of 1 million to 72k NserveMacro FS 72k only:   A test layer of Macrogroup Midscale vectors as a vector feature service. Draws more slowly. Nserve Eco Labels-green:   Base scale Ecological System Labels at 36k to 1k scale (scale bar value .6m to 100')   (Sublayers will show all 31 different tiles included in the Southwest region) Nserve Ecosys FS 1k-36k:   Base scale Ecological System vectors as a vector feature service, 1k to 36k scales   (Sublayers will show all 31 different tiles included in the Southwest region) Layers Padus ProtAreas 1-250k Padus ProtArea 25k-18mLABELS Gap Macrogp 144k-18m LABELS Ecol Overlay Base B 1-36k (CMFS10B) Ecol Overlay Base A 1-36k (CMFS10) Ecol Overlay Reference All 1k-9m (FS10_Ref) Padus Prot Areas 25k-18m Gap Macrogroups 144k-18m Imagery World Imagery Tables CalifMasterFS10_Reference - CNPSNvcNameXwalk1MASTER CalifMasterFS10 - CNPSNvcNameXwalk1MASTER Edit Terms of Use Add any special restrictions, disclaimers, terms and conditions, or limitations on using the item's content. xVegetation xwebmap consgis consmap ... View more

        JUSTICE: Community GIS, Environmental & Social Justice                                                  I first met Dolores Huerta in the early 70's when I volunteered for the United Farmworkers Union, organizing donated food and supplies and participating in some of the lettuce boycott marches.  It closed a huge circle in my life to meet her again at the 2018 Esri User Conference, when she was there with some new young colleagues interested in expanding their GIS capabilities.  A recent outcome of the  Dolores Huerta Foundation GIS Team   is " Redistricting: Mapping for Social Justice ".   Esri's Sustainable Development Solutions Lead  Jen Van Deusen  recently covered this project and the new California "Fair Maps" act in detail over on the Esri Blog site:  "Maps: The Fight for Fairer Redistricting and Voting Rights" ..   If you want to get involved with this great team and know a little GIS, the foundation is  looking to hire a GIS Intern .   If you want to read more about GIS & Social Justice, check out the new " Gis for Equity & Social Justice " geonet group.   INCLUSIVE HISTORY OF CONSERVATION ·         An Inclusive History of Conservation GIS ·         Inclusive History 1: Origins of Conservation ·         Inclusive Hi story of Cons GIS: Introduction ·         On GIS, modesty & the problem of privilege   WOMEN OF COLOR IN CONSERVATION GIS ·         1803 Maria W. Stewart,  Activist ·         1889-1964 Roger Arliner Young,  Zoologist ·         1895-1991 Marguerite Thomas Williams, Geologist   BLACK HISTORY OF CONSERVATION & GIS ·         1731-1806  Benjamin Banneker,  Surveyor Naturalist ·         1755-1836 Jean Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy (A.K.A. Geoffroy L’islet)  Cartographer ·         1803 Maria W. Stewart,  Activist     This section covers the many ways that GIS is used in social action, diversity, equity & environmental justice for local, traditional & tribal communities worldwide.   It includes ways that Conservation GIS is used to engage, support and collaborate with communities in many kinds of social & conservation efforts.  It also includes GIS-based presentations on “PPP” topics, short for “Public Participatory Planning”, as well as material on Citizen Science & Crowdsourcing GIS.  Some material here came from the "Environmental Justice & Law" and the "First Nations & Indigenous" pages of the original   conservationgis.org   site   (Photo:  TTT Trainer Jean Claude Kalemba of the African Wildlife Foundation conducts participatory village micro-zoning projects at Djolu, DRC) ... View more

Lynn Conway – Computer Scientist – United States ( Photo: Wikipedia Text:   Sean Dunnington, "LGBTQ History of Geography & Computers” Project) Lynn Conway is a pioneer of microelectronics chip design with an extraordinary life story. She attended both MIT and Columbia University, and in 1964 was recruited by IBM to work on a team building an advanced supercomputer. While at IBM she transitioned from male to female, and was subsequently fired by the company in 1968 after revealing her intention to live as a woman. Conway then began living with a new name and a new identity, and was forced to rebuild her career from scratch, going on to do important work at organizations including Memorex, Xerox PARC, and DARPA. In 2014 Time magazine named her one of the “21 Transgender People Who Influenced American Culture.”  Since the early 2000's, Lynn has maintained an international website in over a dozen languages devoted to gender & trans resources: (xHistory  xLGBTQIA   xUSA   xComputerScientist ) ... View more

Edith Windsor – IBM engineer & American LGBT Rights Activist – New York City, New York (Photo: courtesy Gay Prider  https://www.gayprider.com/  Text:   Sean Dunnington, "LGBTQ History of Geography & Computers” Project) Edith “Edie” Windsor is best known as a gay rights activist who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court Case United States v. Windsor, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and led to the legalization of gay marriage. What’s less well known is that Windsor was a computer programmer and an engineer, working with the UNIVAC at Combustion Engineering, Inc., and later at IBM in the 1950s and ’60s, eventually becoming a senior systems engineer. (xHistory  xLGBTQIA  xWomen  xUSA  xNewYork   xComputerScientist ) ... View more

Peter Landin – Computer Scientist – England Photo: Wikipedia.   Text:   Sean Dunnington, "LGBTQ History of Geography & Computers” Project) Born in Sheffield, England, Peter Landin studied mathematics at Clare College, Cambridge University, and for a time worked as Christopher Strachey’s assistant. His insight that computer programs could be based on mathematical logic led to the development of programming languages that could be universally understood by different machines. He eventually became emeritus professor of theoretical computation at London’s Queen Mary College. Landin was married but was openly bisexual. In the early 1970s he became involved with the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), and in the later part of his life became more and more devoted to gay rights activism. (xHistory  xLGBTQIA  xEngland xComputerScientist ) ... View more