Vancouver, BC, January 8, 2008 – Safe Software announced today that its recent donation of FME, the world’s only true spatial ETL (extract, transform and load) platform, will assist the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre with critical conservation decision-making around the globe. The grant, which consists of both FME software licenses and training credits, will replace costly, labor-intensive processes by enabling the World Conservation Monitoring Centre to streamline data loading into a World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA). Information provided by the WDPA is an essential guide to global conservation policy development, and conservation priority assessment, planning and monitoring.

"The power of FME’s spatial ETL capability is essential for seamless integration of data into our complex WDPA spatial database,” says Lucy Fish, Spatial Analyst at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre. “I am very pleased that Safe Software is supporting our conservation efforts through the donation of FME software and training for our staff. I see FME playing a crucial role in spatial data management at UNEP-WCMC, both now and into the future."

Safe Software's donation of FME technology (www.safe.com) will provide efficient, multi-format spatial data upload capability for a new implementation of the on-line WDPA. FME will be used to streamline the uploading of data to the WDPA and thereby allow much faster data upload rates than was possible with the old configuration. In the past, updating the WDPA with data provided by a global network of conservation organizations and other agencies was a costly and labor-intensive process for the UNEP-WCMC; data of variable quality provided in multiple formats was manually validated and translated prior to integration into the WDPA. FME’s data translation and transformation capabilities will greatly simplify the update process by allowing each contributing organization to upload their new data to the WDPA in over 200 FME-supported data formats.

FME will automatically perform the format and data model transformations required to ensure that the data is loaded into the database in the formats, schema and projection required by the WDPA. The data validation component of this new decentralized update process will be provided by ESRI ArcGIS Data Interoperability Extension, which is based on Safe Software’s FME technology. Users will receive direct on-line viewing and analysis of protected areas information via a web-based GIS portal provided by ESRI’s ArcGIS Server 9.2 technology.

“Since the company’s establishment in 1993, Safe Software has donated FME technology and training to support many worthwhile projects. I am particularly pleased to be able to support conservation initiatives as important as the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA),” says Don Murray, President of Safe Software. "All the partners in the Proteus Project are to be congratulated for taking the initiative to ensure this vital information is as accessible and as current as possible.”

About the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA)
Managed jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the WDPA contains details on the status, environment and management of over 117,000 sites, and provides the only comprehensive inventory of the world’s protected areas. Information provided by the WDPA is an essential guide to global conservation policy development, and conservation priority assessment, planning and monitoring. The database also plays an important role in mitigating environmental impacts by helping extractive industries and other commercial operations to ensure their activities do not affect important conservation areas.

A new version of the WDPA – which integrates FME - will enhance conservation of plant and animal species and habitats worldwide by providing users with greatly improved access to protected areas information. To view the information contained in the WDPA, users will no longer be required to download the entire WDPA database to a previously installed GIS application. Instead, the new WDPA will allow direct on-line viewing and analysis of protected areas information via a web-based GIS portal provided by ESRI’s ArcGIS Server 9.2 technology. Web-based data download will initially be available in MapInfo and Shapefiles formats, with additional export formats to be added later in the year. 

About the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre
The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre is the biodiversity assessment and policy implementation arm of the United Nations Environment Programme. It seeks to provide objective, accessible and reliable information to practitioners and decision-makers in the public and private sector. To read more about the UNEP-WCMC, visit www.unep-wcmc.org.

About Safe Software and FME
Established in 1993, Safe Software is the maker of FME, the only true spatial ETL (extract, transform and load) platform that enables organizations to use and leverage spatial data in any format or application. FME is used by thousands of customers in over 116 countries in a wide variety of industries.

FME provides the most extensive format support and powerful transformations to help organizations efficiently address the complete spectrum of spatial ETL tasks – from data translation and transformation to federation and distribution. Used by most GIS, CAD, ETL, and DB vendors, FME has emerged as the de facto integrated spatial ETL solution. FME is available in desktop and server solutions, and is also easily integrated into third-party CAD and GIS solutions, as well as most IT environments. Visit www.safe.com for more information.