Conservation activities must operate in the context of an interested community. Citizen concerns prompt conservation activities, as well as constrain them.

Newspapers are a primary source of information.

The daily newspapers express the interests and understanding of the public. As a result, the entire conservation community -- from researchers to managers to educators -- watches the press carefully.

It is likely that almost every biology teacher reads a newspaper with scissors nearby. Any relevant article is clipped and filed since it has the potential to stimulate student interest. Each such article may become a starting point for a new lesson. Or it may be the "hook" for a student research project. It is nearly impossible to imagine a biology classroom without a few newspaper articles posted on the bulletin board. Some student will develop a life-long interest in a topic because she read one of these items.

Conservation organizations follow the newspaper with similar interest. It is their way to see if their message is getting through to the community. It is where they can

A demonstration web site shows how such a newspaper-oriented system will work.

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/consres/news.htm

Specific links are included below to illustrate specific points.

To the interested student, or even an average citizen, seeing the researcher's distribution map may provoke actions that go beyond interest and result in involvement. The opportunity may come from finding a community organization that is sponsoring a Miconia eradication project.

The links that take the student or citizen beyond the newspaper article don't yet exist. However, the mechanism is in place. It is the World-Wide Web.

A web-site that organizes conservation-related newspaper articles will be a valuable resource through the entire community.

• Articles are added to the site to provide a long-term record of what the community knows about conservation.
• Links are made from the articles to background information located on other sites. For example, this may provide color photographs of species, federal policy statements, maps showing locations, student projects addressing the issues, similar activities going on other places, or ...
• Organizations use these links to confirm, elaborate or correct information so that their activities are better understood by the public.
• News reporters benefit from seeing how their seminal articles are interpreted by the professional community. In the long run, the collection will highlight the issues that have become key concerns and provide a reminder -- and information -- for follow-up news articles.

As this Web-based information system develops, it becomes more and more valuable. Instead of a newspaper article having a short life, it remains as an easily-accessible item that documents our changing knowledge, concerns and priorities.

• Teachers will be able to refer students to entire sets of related articles. This will be a particularly valuable tool for new teachers, or those who don't have a long history of biology teaching.
• New researchers will be more likely to find key projects that require investigation. This can extend from students looking for science fair projects through graduate student being attracted to study Hawaii's conservation concerns.

The present demonstration web page violates copyright regulations. Volunteer efforts have been used to enter the text of the newpaper articles, find the links, and maintain the overall page. If this effort is to continue, it must be make legal and be provided with means to ensure that it will be a timely and useful information resource.

• Copyright Permission. The newpaper articles are copyrighted. For them to be used on the web, permission needs to be obtained from the publisher. Without this permission, no other activities are possible.
• Adding Articles & New Photos. A mechanism is needed to make sure that new articles are promptly put into the database. This may involve scanning or retyping, or may use newspaper files. Printed news pictures can not be scanned effectively. If they are to be used, original prints need to be entered into the web pages.
• Linkage Creation and Maintenance. It is not easy to find high-quality links between news articles and background information. Considerable effort and supervision is needed.
• Feedback Informtion. A simple mechanism will be provided to allow anyone with email to comment on the articles, as well as the links. Like newspaper letters to the editor, these responses will be added to the database. Links between an article and all its "letters" will make it easier for people to monitor all of the responses to an item.
• New Materials. As the news stories and their links develop, it will be clear that some information is missing. For example, an article on ...

The essential requirement is to obtain copyright permission to keep the newspaper articles in the database.

Funding for the other activities will be modest. Maintaining the present system, with its current coverage, requires about 4 hours/week of student time. Potential funding agencies include the Gannett Pacific Corporation (or one of its foundations), the Honolulu Community Foundation, ...

Alternative means of support that will be considered include using interns from the UH Journalism Department or even high school students.