Conservation and fieldwork overview

If you run camera traps, wildlife surveys, or a conservation nonprofit site, you need more than a pretty gallery. You need a place to store the photos, record what was seen, decide what the public may learn, attribute gifts to field work honestly, and hand clean data to partners without putting nest sites on a billboard.

ArtInStack gives your team that workspace. Field tools show up when your plan includes field surveys. Everyday website, gallery, and media features stay available to every customer; the guides here focus on conservation workflows.

The six stages (how work flows)

Keep these stage names in mind as you read the how-tos. Page titles stay task-shaped; the stages explain where each job sits.

Stage	What it means	Start here
Capture	Survey, deployments, walkovers, and observations on your media	Field surveys and deployments; Tag species and observations
Govern	Place policy, embargoes, and threat rules before you publish	Data Governance for conservation; Impact maps and location privacy
Compose	Public proof on your site: Evidence, Impact Map, Conservation Story	Evidence of Impact; Conservation Story
Attribute	A paid gift with a campaign becomes an Impact Record you can allocate to survey(s); donors get a private Impact page	Fundraising campaigns for conservation; Impact Records
Gather	Events and volunteers for field days (separate from detections)	Events and volunteers for conservation
Publish science	Partner Camtrap packages and GBIF under your Publisher	Export a Camtrap DP package; Prepare and publish to GBIF

A short end-to-end walkthrough also lives in Conservation & nonprofit workflow.

What you can do

Goal	Where you work
Organize a season or study area	Projects → Surveys
Record camera stations on a map	Survey detail → Deployments
Say which species appear in a photo	Media → Edit observations, or leaf on survey / deployment / walkover thumbs
Attach trap or walkover photos to a study	Survey → deployment Media, or Direct observations / walkovers
Find images by species, IUCN status, or survey	Media → Add filter
Protect sensitive taxa across maps, Evidence, and exports	Settings → Privacy & security → Data Governance
Show donors a map without exact GPS	Portfolio settings + Impact Map on a page
Show species on a public photo page (optional)	Portfolio → Show observations on photo detail page
Publish a survey Evidence timeline	Page editor → Evidence of Impact block
Publish a full program story in one block	Page editor → Conservation Story (survey first, optional campaign)
Raise funds beside the story	Products → Donations, Settings → Campaigns
Attribute gifts to field surveys	Settings → Campaigns → Impact (Impact Records); donor page from the receipt email
Run volunteer days or workshops	Events Manager
Send partners a standard camera-trap package	Survey → Export Camtrap DP
Prepare a harvest-ready package / publish to GBIF	Survey → GBIF → Prepare / Download / Publish; Settings → Integrations → GBIF

How the pieces fit (in plain language)

Think in layers:

1. The photo lives in Media, with capture date and optional location.
2. What was detected: one or more observations on that photo (species, count, IUCN status, and so on). One frame can hold more than one animal.
3. The field study: a survey groups the work; a deployment is one camera placement inside that survey.
4. The public story: a portfolio and your pages control galleries, maps, Evidence, and Conservation Story.
5. Money provenance: when a paid gift includes a campaign, ArtInStack creates an Impact Record. You allocate that record toward one or more surveys. Linking a campaign to a survey for framing is not the same as proving spend.

Scientific names belong on the observation, not as a single “species” label stuck forever on the file. That matches how camera-trap programs already think about data.

Plan access

Open Settings → Subscription if you do not see Projects → Surveys or observation tools in Media. Field survey features are plan-based. Without them, your site and media library still work; you simply will not see conservation-only screens.

A practical order of work

1. Confirm field surveys are on your plan.
2. Create a survey and add at least one deployment (place the camera, set dates).
3. Attach field photos on deployments and/or under Direct observations / walkovers; fix capture date or map location when the camera did not write them.
4. Identify species with the leaf on survey thumbs or Edit observations in Media; link survey and deployment as needed.
5. Configure Data Governance (threat tiers, species overrides, embargo defaults) before you publish maps or Evidence.
6. Build a portfolio for public storytelling; prefer redacted map locations for sensitive work.
7. Turn on public observations only for albums that should show species to visitors.
8. Add Evidence of Impact and/or a Conservation Story block on a program page (Evidence of Impact; Conservation Story).
9. Publish an Impact Map page; add a donation campaign when you are fundraising.
10. After paid gifts land, open Settings → Campaigns → Impact to confirm or split allocations toward surveys, then share the donor Impact link from the receipt (Impact Records).
11. Export a Camtrap package when a partner or archive asks for standardized tables.
12. When your institution is ready for a DOI-backed dataset, Prepare and publish to GBIF.

Protecting sensitive information

On your public site	Good default
Impact Map pins	Redacted or hidden, not exact trailheads for sensitive taxa
Species on photo pages	Off until you deliberately enable it per portfolio
Threatened species (VU / EN / CR)	Individual IDs and locating notes stay off the public panel. Turn on Data Governance automatic threat obfuscation when you want maps and Evidence to enforce fuzz or withhold
Survey embargo	Set Public after on the survey (or use the organization default) so Evidence and exports stay private until that date
Impact Records / Conservation Story	Never invent survey spend from a campaign↔survey link alone. Allocation lines on the Impact Record are the source of truth
Files you download for partners	May include precise station coordinates. Share only through trusted channels

Configure org rules under Data Governance for conservation.

Next guides

• Field surveys and deployments
• Tag species and observations
• Data Governance for conservation
• Impact maps and location privacy for conservation
• Public observations on photo detail pages
• Evidence of Impact
• Conservation Story
• Fundraising campaigns for conservation
• Impact Records
• Events and volunteers for conservation
• Export a Camtrap DP package
• Prepare and publish to GBIF

Also useful: Upload your first photos, Photo detail pages, Portfolio geo visibility and impact maps.