The world’s first complete ocean atlas has been released.
|
On World Environment Day, the United Nations and leading scientific institutions launched the first Internet atlas of the world's oceans to monitor and hopefully heal the waters that play a critical role in sustaining life on earth.
After a decade of planning and more than two-and-a-half years of development, the UN Oceans Atlas is online.
This site initially has 14 global maps, links to hundreds of others, and over 2,000 documents on 900 subjects ranging from climate change, fishing areas and ship piracy to poisonous algae, offshore oil and recreation activities.
Project manager John Everett said today's launch culminates a unique partnership between the public and private sectors to bring an encyclopedic resource to a wide cross-section of users - from school children to policy makers and scientific experts.
"The oceans play a crucial role in sustaining life on earth," said Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation which led the initiative with primary funding of $US500,000 ($A875,657) from the United Nations Foundation, started by media mogul Ted Turner.
For the complete articale from the Melbourne click on this link
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/05/1022982713860.html
Direct link to this site, http://www.oceansatlas.com/index.jsp