Why is ARKive needed?
Wildlife habitats are being destroyed worldwide and many species are threatened with extinction. Valuable and powerful images of these species exist but in many different collections, scattered around the world, making access difficult. Saving the images - for research and education - is vital; ARKive’s becoming an important resource to help save the species they depict. ARKive will create a centralised audio-visual record of the world’s endangered species for the first time ever, building them into a comprehensive multi-media statement of Earth's biodiversity.

Who is backing ARKive?
ARKive's importance is recognised by many of the most famous names in natural history broadcasting including ABC Australia, the BBC, National Geographic, OSF and specialist photographic agencies such as naturepl, Ardea and Natural Image. It is also being backed by a broad range of conservation organisations: English Nature, Flora & Fauna International, IUCN - The World Conservation Union, RSPB, UNEP-WCMC The World Conservation Monitoring Centre, WWF and First Great Western.

Education - layers of discovery and learning
ARKive's website will be 'layered' to ensure it works for all users - from school children to scientific experts. The same source materials will be re-purposed for different audiences, thanks to funding from Hewlett Packard Labs and research being undertaken by Bristol University, building on work done by the University of the West of England. Research is being aided by educationalists who are studying how tutors and students of all ages use the Internet in order to understand their future web needs.

ARKive's Headquarters
ARKive will exist wherever there is an Internet connection, but it shares its physical home with its parent body The Wildscreen Trust on the site of an innovative, new visitor attraction, Wildwalk at-Bristol - a walk-through rainforest and interactive multi-media biodiversity exhibition in the centre of Bristol, UK. Here, ARKive is also developing a more traditional library, which already includes over 2,000 natural history films, a collection of interviews with wildlife film pioneers and specialist books about the history of wildlife film making and photography.

Can you help?
The quest for images and recordings will continue long after the website is launched. Offers of materials are welcome at any time from individuals and specialist organisations as well as commercial libraries. ARKive will act as a showcase for image providers, with full copyright details displayed on-screen and with direct links to image providers' contact information.
(Please note: Copyright of images remain at all times with the contributor(s) of the media.)

What's happening now?
Thanks to a £1.6 million grant from the UK's Heritage Lottery Fund, images and audio recordings are being collected for approximately 1,000 British species. At the same time, a grant of £0.5 million from the UK's New Opportunities Fund is enabling work to begin on creating digital profiles for 500 of the world's most endangered species. It is ARKive's ultimate aim to cover the 6,000 animals and 33,000 plants on the IUCN'S international Red Lists. ARKive's technological infrastructure is being developed by one of the world's most innovative centres of computer design and invention - Hewlett Packard Labs (Europe) - who are donating US$2 million worth of technical expertise to the project.