Fujitsu Provides Free Cloud Service to Ten Organizations Involved in Biodiversity Conservation Activities

Tokyo, April 01, 2013

Fujitsu today announced that, starting April 1, 2013, it will provide its Mobile Photo System⁽¹⁾ cloud service, a biosurvey tool, free of charge to ten organizations involved in biodiversity conservation activities.

The initiative involves a variety of organizations, including governmental organizations, NPOs, educational research institutes, and community groups. This service can be used to efficiently conduct biosurveys over a wide area and for a variety of objectives, such as in strategic community policies, measures to protect against the introduction of non-native plant species, and distributional surveys of animals and plants. This is expected to promote further progress in biodiversity conservation activities.

The Fujitsu Group will continue employing ICT to promote projects that contribute to the environment through field conservation activities.

To date, Fujitsu has supported biodiversity conservation activities in Japan through the provision of a Mobile Photo System cloud service for Aichi University of Education's Nationwide Dandelion Survey and Kawasaki City's vegetation survey of the Tama River area. Recently, however, Fujitsu invited organizations involved in environmental and biodiversity conservation to apply for the service, with the goal of further advancing their activities. Applications submitted by such organizations were objectively evaluated by a panel of leading outside experts. As a result of this process, ten diverse organizations conducting studies in various locations throughout Japan were selected for the service. They include the Ministry of the Environment, which is conducting a survey of Hakusan National Park to protect against the introduction of non-native plant species, Kurashiki City's development of regional biodiversity strategy, which residents will participate in conducting a biosurvey, Japan Wetlands Society's wetlands survey of Hokkaido's Tokachi region, and A Thousand Flowers for Bees, a NPO registered in Japan's biological survey of honey bees, which are attracted to garden flowers.

Selection Criteria

A panel of leading outside experts evaluated the applications and selected the organizations based on the following criteria.

• The activity plan is clear and, based on their track record, they can be expected to generate results.
• There is a benefit to using the Mobile Photo System (in terms of enhancing the efficiency of the survey and using the data).
• The project will contribute to biodiversity conservation.
• Distribution of the information (dissemination of knowledge to society) will have ripple effects.

Organizations Selected

The following project activities and organizations were selected based on the evaluation process.

Organizations Selected

No.	Project Activity Title	Organization Name
1	Monitoring of the expanding distribution of fleawort and other non-native plant species that have been introduced into the Hakusan area and implementation of effective measures to address non-native plant species	Chubu Regional Environment Office of Ministry of the Environment Hakusan Ranger Office For Nature Conservation
2	Let's search for living things throughout Japan!	Biodiversity Governance Network Office
3	Intertwined Life Project Survey of Living Things in the Chita Peninsula Green Belt	Intertwined Life Project Office
4	For use in basic surveys of the natural environment performed with the cooperation of residents in the Kurashiki City community biodiversity strategic policy	Kurashiki City
5	National survey of bumblebees that pollinate flowers	Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University
6	Through a biosurvey conducted with the participation of residents, let us protect the managed woodlands that help support the the unique ecosystem of remote Tsushima Island	MIT
7	Comprehensive natural survey of the Tokachi coastal lakes area, which is a potential candidate for wetlands protection under the Ramsar Convention	The Wetlands Institute of Northeastern Asia
8	Distributional survey of plants and animals and monitoring of living things in the area around the practical training location for Tokyo College of Environment	Tokyo College of Environment
9	"Come here, Honey Bee Survey," a survey of the natural habitat of honey bees to confirm that they are attracted to plants that are the source of honey and pollen, as well as a survey of the interest level of local residents	A Thousand Flowers for Bees, a NPO registered in Japan
10	Survey activities on the relationship between living near managed woodlands and biodiversity	ECOPLUS, a NPO registered in Japan

By using this service, each organization will easily be able to visualize the data they have collected on a map, and it is hoped that they will be able to uncover hidden correlations among their data.

Fujitsu will continue employing ICT to contribute to the promotion of biodiversity conservation.