There is a great deal of passion surrounding the subject of tiger conservation, and there was a great deal of energy at the recent Global Tiger Workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal. (Photo courtesy of catlovers under a Creative Commons license.)

I’m writing this in Kathmandu, Nepal, at the end of the Global Tiger Workshop, the latest event leading up to the Tiger Summit expected to be held late next year in Vladivostok. This process all began with the major launch of the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI) in Washington, DC, in June 2008, and direct engagement with the tiger range countries on the issue of illegal wildlife trade really took off in Pattaya, Thailand, in April this year with ASEAN-WEN and other partners.

This was no ordinary World Bank-facilitated meeting inasmuch as National Geographic filmed the event, and it included a kilometer-long, elephant-led parade of children calling for the conservation of tigers. The GTI team keyed into the Asian and global media through op-eds, press releases, and YouTube. It also had significant support from the highest levels of the Nepali government which excelled itself not just in organizational support and hospitality, but also in commitments for tiger conservation – i.e. plans to double the size of one of its top tiger habitats, Bardia National Park. As remarked byEric Dinerstein, World Wildlife Fund-US Chief Scientist, there has not been such a positive period for the future of Nepal’s tigers in all the 35 years he has been living in and visiting Nepal.

Development Marketplace 2009 goes into business on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009, with an intense four-day global competition among "100 ideas to save the planet," including some helping the world's most vulnerable people adapt to threatening climate change.

The public is invited, but visitors must register by Tuesday, Nov. 3.  Here's the four-day agenda for the event, which will be held in the Main Complex of the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. (Visitors should enter the Bank at 18^th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.)

Coming on the heels of the publication of the Bank's World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change, DM2009: Climate Adaptation has sub-themes aimed at producing streamlined, easy-to-scale innovations that will help protect people in developing countries, especially the poorest, who live in the most climate-vulnerable places and situations.

The three sub-themes:

1. resilience of Indigenous Peoples (at left, photo of Andes family),
2. climate risk management with multiple benefits and
3. climate adaptation and disaster risk management.

Click to view large.

A colleague over at the PSD blog first pointed out yesterday a brand new data visualization tool recently rolled out by the World Bank. The Data Visualizer displays the 2009 World Development Indicators – including 49 indicators for 209 countries from 1960-2007 – in an attractive, easy-to-understand and highly customizable way. The data contains social, economic, financial and environmental indicators and can be filtered in a number of different ways, including by region and country.

Someone familiar withGapminder.org, which I wrote aboutlast spring, will quickly notice that this new tool from the World Bank is quite similar to the Gapminder World animated graphing tool. As I mentioned in that post, I think one of the most interesting aspects of this type of data visualization is being able to literally hit Play and witness how the data indicators have changed over time right in front of your eyes.