Feed to NSW BioNet government database

8 Jun 2023

Hi All,

NatureMapr will soon feed sighting data through to the NSW BioNet government database as run by NSW Department of Planning and Environment. This is following extensive discussion for quite some time with the NSW BioNet team who have been excellent to deal with.

The data feed has now been developed and is currently undergoing final testing.

This is a strategically very important data feed for the citizen science community because of our mission and core values. One of which is:

"Allow biodiversity information from anybody to contribute to real on the ground outcomes"

State and local government biodiversity databases are where the bulk of local on the ground action items and downstream outcomes all stem from.

It is through these locally focused databases (like the ACT Atlas, NSW BioNet, QLD WildNet and others) that park rangers, ecologists, fire fighters and other workers are assigned action items in the real world.

It is vital for your biodiversity data to make it into these state and local government databases in order for it to be effectively visible and have a chance at making a difference.

This new data feed will soon become active for all records that lie within any NatureMapr NSW regions. The logic will be identical to that of our existing external data feeds. I.e. the precise location of sensitive and highly sensitive records will be safeguarded.

When I'm reporting sightings in NSW, I want to know that my data will be included in the same data sets used to help inform things like NSW RFS prescribed burns and development application approvals.

We will keep you posted once the feed goes live. Any questions, please yell out any time.

You can read more about the NSW BioNet database.

Cheers

Aaron.

19 comments

HelenCross wrote:

8 Jun 2023

Fantastic work Aaron!

LisaH wrote:

9 Jun 2023

This is excellent news! I can't tell you how excited I am! Thank you so much for the work and effort you've put into helping our sightings be seen (and heard), and hopefully taken into account, by decision makers. (And thank you to the BioNet team for taking citizen science seriously)

SimoneC wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Great news, 90% of my records are in NSW so I really appreciate that they will now be potentially much more useful

GlossyGal wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Oh My Goodness Aaron - this is fabulous news! The implications are huge ☺️. I imagine it hasn't been easy so thanks heaps for persisting with it. I look forward to reading that it's actually started. Keep up the great work all you wonderful NM elves.

ESP wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Thanks, in the absence of a BioNet Atlas app, this is a leap forward. Can you disclose how often data will be fed to Atlas and whether staff have given an indication of whether the data will go straight into Atlas or if it will be queued for review? At present, unless sightings are entered directly into Atlas (which is a clunky process), datasets sit in a queue until the very scarce staff are able to review the info and check it for obvious errors. That process can take months, based on experience. For some of us, getting particularly significant records into Atlas immediately or within 24 hours can be vital, especially for regulatory purposes.

AaronClausen wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Thanks @HelenCross, @LisaH, @SimoneC, @GlossyGal, @ESP for the support.

Yep this is a substantial step forward in terms of the average person's data being able to make much more of an impact and get into the right places where decisions are made.

Once the data feed has passed testing (we are close), my understanding is that it will NOT require manual human review on a record by record basis, as the overarching data set and the mapping of NatureMapr to BioNet attributes has been reviewed and tested wholistically.

The BioNet team (yes with extremely limited resources) have not promised regular feed sync/updates, but it will be done periodically to ensure accuracy and with a view to hopefully increasing the frequency over time. It is a very solid starting point and we really appreciate them working proactively with us to get this feed in place.

Bottom line is I think you can know that your NSW data will make it's way into the right place and it will actually bypass the traditional "manual review of one record at a time" process.

All very positive! We will definitely build on this over time. Trying to get QLD WildNet in place shortly.

AndyRoo wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Brilliant work!

AndyRoo wrote:

9 Jun 2023

BTW in the "NatureMapr daily summary" I really like the inclusion of the Mission and Values bits.

AaronClausen wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Thanks @AndyRoo !

MatthewFrawley wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Great work as always @AaronClausen and with QLD WildNet in the works this just gets even better.

AaronClausen wrote:

9 Jun 2023

Thanks for epic help @MatthewFrawley @HelenCross and many others, we will get there.

GlossyGal wrote:

1 Aug 2023

Hi Aaron - any further progress on this?

AaronClausen wrote:

17 Aug 2023

I chatted to the NSW BioNet team this week. They have not forgotten, they are just getting absolutely hammered at the moment with limited resources to handle the workload. We are in very good hands and I will provide another update as soon as the feed goes live.

We hugely appreciate their support and taking the data feed seriously and incorporating it into their scheduled work.

Wildgums wrote:

5 Jan 2024

Just checking in to see if you've had any luck cracking BioNet? Some horrific DAs in our local area currently being assessed and we're really hoping our NatureMapr sightings will get onto BioNet in time, but know how challenging this sort of integration can be.

GlossyGal wrote:

5 Jan 2024

I'd wondered about the same thing...I'd really appreciate an update.

AaronClausen wrote:

8 Jan 2024

Hi everyone,

The NSW BioNet team have had to undertake their own system migration from their legacy system onto modern cloud infrastructure, so as a result, the switching on of the new feed has unfortunately been delayed a bit. I am meeting with them next in February and should have a very good update on where things are up to.

BUT in the interim, we have the ability to run off a manual data extract and provide the data to them manually. It might be worth doing a large extract, we will have a look at it soon and see what we can organise just to provide a bit of assurance for existing important records which are already in NatureMapr but not in BioNet yet.

Thanks everyone for their patience on this.

Cheers

Aaron.

LisaH wrote:

8 Jan 2024

Thanks Aaron - much appreciated, and keenly anticipated!

AaronClausen wrote:

8 Jan 2024

👍 Lots of good work happening this year in terms of strengthening our partnership with NSW BioNet and NSW Government more broadly.

Stay tuned..

GlossyGal wrote:

8 Jan 2024

Good to know. I look forward to the next update in February 🤞🏻

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