Nature Serve
NatureServe is a non-profit conservation organization whose mission is to provide the scientific basis for conservation action.
NatureServe is an international network of biological inventories operating in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. NatureServe collects and manages local information on plants, animals, and ecosystems, and develops related information products, data management tools, and conservation services. Information developed by NatureServe is used by many sectors, such as conservation groups, government agencies, corporations, academia, and the public, to make decisions about managing natural resources.
NatureServe is an IUCN Red List partner and assesses the conservation status of plant, animal, and fungal species, as well as ecological communities and systems. These assessments lead to the designation of a NatureServe conservation status rank.
NatureServe Explorer is an online database of information on the plants, animals, and ecosystems of the United States and Canada.
NatureServe maintains the National Vegetation Classification Standard for the United States as well as the International Classification of Ecological Communities, currently focused on the Western Hemisphere.
Read more about Nature Serve: The NatureServe Network
Famous quotes containing the words nature and/or serve:
“Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like children, the elders are a burden. But unlike children, they offer no hope or promise. They are a weight and an encumbrance and a mirror of our own mortality. It takes a person of great heart to see past this fact and to see the wisdom the elders have to offer, and so serve them out of gratitude for the life they have passed on to us.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)