The International Program is designed to help conservation activists from around the world develop scientific conservation protection skills. We concentrate our efforts on helping people do their work better, by assisting them with technology transfer and capacity building. Our work in other countries is primarily aimed at identifying conservationists who are working to protect and restore biodiversity and intact ecosystems, and helping them develop skills they want and need to make them more effective in accomplishing their goals. The International Program works in three core areas: (i) capacity building through collaborative projects, campaign coordination, and information sharing; (ii) grassroots GIS projects through provision of hardware, software, and training as well as cooperative project work; (iii) monitoring the development activities of international corporations and financial institutions.
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), the world's leading manufacturer of GIS software, in 1997 selected the International Program as a project responsible for identifying and working directly with international recipients of ESRI software grants. In addition to software grant assistance, the International Program has also arranged four combination grants of computer hardware and GIS software for Russian NGOs through the Conservation Technology Support Program (CTSP), providing conservation groups in the Altai, Sakhalin Island, Bryansk, and the Republic of Sakha with all the hardware and software components necessary to establish their own GIS labs.

In addition to on-site training seminars, in 1997 we began an International Internship Program at our GIS lab in Montana. This program brings international conservation scientists to Missoula to work in our offices for one to three months in order to build their skill levels through advanced GIS training, while also providing them with opportunities to network with their American colleagues and attend U.S. conferences. To date, thirty-three interns have benefited from this intensive training and networking opportunity, coming from the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Republic of Sakha, Germany, Chile, and Madagascar. Several of our interns have written successful GIS software grants while in Missoula and two of our interns have become project partners with the University of Montana's NASA-funded Earth Observation System education program. Our International Program helped foster this partnership, which has yielded a wealth of satellite imagery for conservation NGOs working to protect snow leopard habitat in the Altai region of Russia and to establish a biosphere reserve near the Lena River delta on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

In 1999, the International Program established a state-of-the-art GIS lab in the Russian Far East on Sakhalin Island. International Program Coordinator Mike Beltz wrote a successful grant to the Conservation Technical Support Program (CTSP) for computer hardware, a map plotter, and GIS software, then took the equipment to Sakhalin Island and set up the lab for Sakhalin Environment Watch, a conservation NGO based in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. In addition to delivering the equipment and setting up the lab, program staff conducted an intensive GIS training seminar for the conservationists on the island, and delivered Landsat 7 satellite imagery of key habitat areas.

Working with Friends of the Earth-Japan, International Program staff developed a map and database of protected areas and biodiversity hotspots in the Russian Far East entitled The Russian Far East: Protected Areas and Biodiversity Hotspots. Five thousand copies of the map were printed and distributed, and the map is now being used throughout the Russian Far East to highlight the need for additional protected areas and set conservation priorities for the region.

The International Program was central to a 1999 project that focused on uniting salmon conservation efforts across the entire northern Pacific Rim. Operating in partnership with the Wild Salmon Center in Portland, Oregon, Pacific Environment and Resource Center (now Pacific Environment), and a group of researchers from Oregon Sate University, the collaborative group created an atlas of the state of wild salmon stocks in the entire northern Pacific Rim ecosystem. These efforts had been hampered by the lack of GIS expertise and capacity by Russian partners in the project, so in May of 1999 International Program staff traveled to Khabarovsk to conduct a GIS training seminar for fisheries biologists from across the Russian Far East and deliver GIS software donated by ESRI.

In 2000, a grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding made it possible for our International Program to bring together over seventy Russian conservation GIS users with eight of their American counterparts, for the first-ever conservation GIS conference held in Russia. By the end of this landmark event, the Russian participants had decided to work cooperatively and formed a coalition to share data, information, and resources.

In 2002 we convened a second conference of conservation GIS users in Yakutsk. In attendance at this conference were 30 Russian and American conservationists, researchers and academics, including International Program staff and representatives of the American GIS software manufacturer ESRI and the International Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS). The Yakutsk conference further demonstrated the vigor of Russian conservation science and continued to strengthen the links between conservation advocates in the Russian Far East, American conservationists, and the world's leading GIS software manufacturer.

At the 2000 conference, a Russian chapter of the Society for Conservation GIS was formed and at the 2002 conference, a strategic development plan was created. In addition to defining a cooperative research and information sharing structure for Russian conservation GIS practitioners, this plan called for the development of the Russian SCGIS website and email list server. The list serve is now in place and is already allowing better communication between Russian conservationists spread from Moscow to Kamchatka. The website will offer a place to distribute conference proceedings and research papers, as well as to present and discuss future plans and projects being developed by Russian SCGIS members. The website will also host a sophisticated interactive map database web server, which is being developed on our web server by Russian and International Program specialists.

The International Program conducted three GIS trainings in Russia in 2003. The first occurred in Abakan, Khakassia in the eastern Altai Republic, assisted specialists from the Sayano-Shushensky Biosphere Reserve, Shushensky Bor Nature Park and Khakassky Reserve, Kuznetsky Alatau Nature Reserve, Uvs-Noor Valley Biosphere Reserve, Azas Reserve, Stolby Reserve, Central Siberian Reserve and the Tungussky Reserve. The second GIS seminar occurred in the southern Altai for conservation groups and the staff of the Daursky Biosphere Nature Reserve in Zabaikalye. The third seminar was conducted in the Kamchatka Peninsula for conservation fishery biologists, Kronotsky Nature Reserve staff and the Kamchatka League of Independent Experts. Software from ESRI was donated to participants at each of these trainings.

Also in 2003, the International Program supported five Russian scientists to attend a GIS conference and training in San Diego California sponsored by ESRI and the International Society for Conservation GIS. The conference and training sessions occurred during two weeks in July and helped the Russian specialists to exchange research data and techniques with colleagues from the United States and around the world, as well as allowing them to receive free GIS training from ESRI at their headquarters in Redlands, California.