From the 8th to 12th September 2014, Wildlife At Risk (WAR) co-operated with U Minh Thuong National Park – Kien Giang Province, to organise a training course titled “Using open source applications in natural resource management” for 23 staff from national parks and protected areas in the Western South Provinces. The training course introduces open source softwares in mapping and managing of natural resources.
The training course introduced a number of open source applications on Linux operating system such as: QGIS, GRASS GIS, and GPS Banle for mapping and database; GIMP and Scribus for graphic design; and Libre Office for office applications. At the training course, the participants practiced on laptops on maps of their protected areas. They also took photos of U Minh Thuong National Park and processed the photos on GIMP (An image Processing open software).The participations were totally exciting with the training course. “This course is very useful for me. The QGIS helps me to analyse and present our natural resource maps better. I will definitely use QGIS instead of the software that I am using now” – said Mr. Nguyen Van Ut, conservation staff from Lang Sen Wetland Reserve.
According to Mr. Bui Huu Manh, Senior Conservation Officer from WAR who was trainer of the course: “Open source applications are quite powerful. It’s functions are adequate and strong in natural resource management. For anyone who could not afford commercial software, open source applications are right choices”.