NatureMapr moves to simpler, flatter national structure

Posted by AaronClausen

 26 Aug 2025

As we continue to look for ways to reduce the overall footprint, complexity and ongoing cost to operate the platform, NatureMapr has decomissioned the legacy "regional" structure that many of you will be familiar with and has been around for quite some time.

This means that NatureMapr will move to a simpler and flatter national structure.

We are genuinely positive and excited about this change, it is also vital for the platform's continued operation.

I will also explain the reasoning behind the change and what it means below.

The back story

In 2013, "Canberra Nature Map" kicked off as a regionally focused citizen science website, directly servicing the local Canberran community and providing verified biodiversity records to ACT Government.

It worked well because it was locally focused and not "internationally watered down".

We always prioritised providing a quality local user experience over a rapid and watered down international user experience for growth's sake.

Years later, we made an assumption that perhaps people in other regions might benefit from a similar localised user experience that the community in Canberra had been enjoying for quite some time.

With lots of help from people like Jen Smits and with early support from organisations like Albury Conservation Company and Wingecarribee Shire Council, we established a series of regionally focused "sub sites". E.g. albury-wodonga.naturemapr.org or southern-highlands.naturemapr.org - each with their own fully interactive home pages and complex feature sets.

Our hope was that the local communities in these regions would move in and call them home.

An incorrect assumption

But this was just an assumption - and it turned out to be incorrect.

Not only was our assumption incorrect, but these feature rich pages were also very complex for the system to crunch and they increased our overall platform footprint significantly, and our costs.

Up until recently, if you browsed to many of these regional hubs, many of them showed limited activity.

This is because people congregate around the causes and organisations important to them

.. not around a bunch of ad hoc regional structures that we came up with arbitrarily.

The other big problem with these regional hubs, like 'Southern Highlands Nature Map', is that there is no paying customer or allocated funding to support their operation.

In an era where the costs and the amount of regulation required to operate a business are progressively increasing, we simply can't justify providing this service any more.

What do these changes mean?

In order to reduce the complexity and cost to operate the platform, so that we can keep NatureMapr running:

  • NatureMapr will no longer host dedicated regional home pages across Australia E.g. brisbane.naturemapr.org or pilbara.naturemapr.org
  • NatureMapr will no longer host dedicated sighting and species lists for these regions across Australia

NatureMapr's collections feature instead provides a flexible structure for people to congregate around the projects, causes (and places) important to them.

Can I still upload sightings across Australia?

Yes, absolutely.

We want people to be able to continue to upload their important records right across Australia (myself included).

It just means that there won't be a dedicated "sub site" for Far North Queensland or the Pilbara any more. But you can still spin up your own collection and amass or organise records from any place you or your local community might be interested in.

What about Canberra Nature Map?

The Canberra Nature Map community can continue to access their own dedicated regional hub directly at: https://canberra.naturemapr.org as this service is funded by ACT Government.

But beyond Canberra, NatureMapr now moves to a simpler, flatter, national structure which is a big win for simplicity and a step in the evolution of NatureMapr's long term sustainability.

15 comments

   27 Aug 2025
Thanks for the explanation Aaron and the continuation of the fantastic Naturemapr platform
   27 Aug 2025
Excellent idea Aaron, this change will bring a lot of advantages.
AlisonMilton wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
I understand the reasoning for this but it does present a couple of issues. Without the mapping function you can no longer see what is present in a particular region. Also, when searching the Species pages we now have the global set so can't narrow the search to local species - many more pages to now scroll through with the uncertainity of whether they are actually present in the region. Means I am less likely to try to narrow down to species and more work for the Moderators. I'm not sure I see the advantages suggested by Michael.
annmhare wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
Thank you for the explanation of the change. And thank you for NatureMapr in ACT, I have found it really interesting and a "good learning" for a beginner like me.
AndyRoo wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
Thanks Aaron. Yep it all makes sense. Although, ditto to Alison's comments but I guess you've gotta do what you gotta do! Anyway great that NatureMapr is still able to continue operating and that the ability to load sightings Australia wide is being retained.
Every now and then I hear iNaturalist getting a mention on ABC Radio in reference to segments on citizen science and wonder why NatureMapr isn't also included. However, I was pleased to at last hear
NatureMapr get a mention (along with iNaturalist of course) as a valuable source of citizen data for ALA in the Thurs 14 Aug 2025 episode of ABC Radio National's Life Matters. The segment was "Citizen science is booming, but does it really help?" https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lifematters/citizen-science-is-booming-but-does-it-really-help-/105638456.
RoyP wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
Thanks Aaron for the explanation and fully appreciate the cost constraints. In downloading sightings does one still follow the previous method or it necessary to to download the CSV file to import sightings? Royp
PeteWoodall wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
Thanks for the information. I understand the problems you are having trying to go nation-wide.
As a past contributor to NatureMapr (particularly for my Canberra records) and currently to iNaturalist, I hope that you will recognise the value of iNaturalist in curating citizen science records from across the country (and the world).
lbradley wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
Thank you Aaron. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to collect sighting from Canberra and New South Wales and have them verified by experts. I know from experience that our moderators only confirm sightings that they are 100% sure of.. Keep up the good work!
KimberiRP wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
Thanks Aaron for the explanation. Not an easy decision, I guess, but I totally understand it.
Alison Milton (above) has mentioned that the abolition of regional lists will make it harder for moderators, and I agree. Is there any chance of a dynamic tool that would compile a species list, of any chosen taxon, recorded in NatureMapr within (say) either an administrative region (State or Territory) or a circle of any radius centred on any point, e.g. an area within 30km of central Canberra? I envisage that any list generated would not be stored on the platform.
Harrisi wrote:
   27 Aug 2025
I have been loyal NatureMapr for ten years and have absolutely loved interacting with it, as well as promoting it at every given opportunity. The early flow problems into ALA were fixed and the data has flowed nicely. Knowing that one's efforts are not wasted is massive in my faith in NatureMapr but to be honest, in the past year or so I have been very worried at the constant morphing and changing of the platform, and the overall durability/longevity of it? I hope the profound change you talk about here helps to stabilise the platform many of us love and utilise.
I also 100% understand the type of stress you must be experiencing around all this Aaron and I really hope that your grand efforts are finally rewarded by the financial stability and longevity of this outstanding platform. As the new season looms, I look forward to contributing earnestly to NatureMapr!
RodDeb wrote:
   28 Aug 2025
Thank you Aaron, and team for all the time and effort you put in to upgrading and maintaining this wonderful site. I agree with Alison I do miss the maps.
Also I have noticed that a number of "birds" and possible other fauna and flora are missing from "places" lists. I did a search on just 3 random Southern White Face, they were listed for Tennant, ACT, Tralee, NSW and Booth, ACT and when I clicked on the "place" they were seen at none of them were visible for that place. There are probably many more like this as it was just something I noticed randomly. Are the "places" sightings going to be updated? Is this a known problem? Just thought I should let you know, sorry to make more work. I thought it would be necessary to be able to see all the fauna and flora seen at each "place" when clicked on for research purposes.
ibaird wrote:
   28 Aug 2025
Thank you Aaron for the explanation for the change, and I feel I understand the reasons why. I fully endorse the supportive comments of all those whe have commented here and I wish you and the technical teem and NatureMapr all the very best for the future. However, I acknowledge and see my role as a moderator will be not be as well informed by NatureMapr as it was previously - noting AlisonMilton's and KimberiRP's comments to that effect. I will be relying heavily on what I have learnt from that past flexibilty in NatureMapr in being able to educate myself about species and in tackling the future. One feature I will miss keenly is not being able to as quickly assess how well NatureMapr's confirmed geographical distributions of of a taxon compare with the coverage visible of the same taxon on other platforms (eg. the Atlas of Living Australia, iNaturalist and Bold Systems). I would like to particularly endorse KimberiRP's comments as regards a new dynamic tool which may possibly fill the gap.
Choyster wrote:
   29 Aug 2025
Hi @AlisonMilton @AndyRoo @KimberiRP @RodDeb @ibaird the trade-offs for all users are unfortunate and we hope that you will bear with us. For NatureMapr's longevity we are trying to strike a balance between a user friendly and a streamlined platform that we can run sustainably. Currently, we are not in a position to build new features. However, if we find partners through our programs that support us financially we are hopeful to be in the position where we can build/reinstate features like region specific species lists that will benefit moderators and the wider user community as we very much value your time and expertise.
KylieWaldon wrote:
   30 Aug 2025
I understand why, but by cutting out the regions taxa altogether in this way... I just don't know. iNaturalist does allow you to select a region for searching and see what is going on in a region and see the sightings in that region for individual species. Being in a non-ACT region/s this is one of the main benefits I found with NaturemapR. It was localised. I will try it and see how it goes, but it may be a deal breaker for people like me that are not in the ACT area. Personally I think this is a mistake. This brings you back to a focus on ACT only. A bit disappointing. I notice that the 'all sightings' has dropped off in this too. I take it that is deliberate because you now have all sightings in one, but if you can only flip back to the 'latest sightings' then you don't really have a site . Not being able to see all sightings and flick through in a region was something I also used often (and to see one species in this region, that one, and the other one). I guess the writing has always been on the wall because you started in the ACT. But I will keep using it and see how I go. I don't regret joining Naturemap and contributing. Its been one of the best things in my life and saved me during COVID. <3
KorinneM wrote:
   2 Sep 2025
Feeling like a lot of the above, particularly about the interesting-ness this might make for moderation (I'm lucky with at least smaller species numbers in my area than a lot of other areas). I can see that on an individual species page that there is the list of regions and locations it is found in at the bottom, which is something at least.

I'm tending to use iNaturalist to figure out what is in an area for places outside the ACT for moderation or otherwise of identifying as a starting point, a lot of the time.

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