To aid conservation and restoration efforts, the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (FAR) node was established to provide an integrated, comprehensive web-based resource that will: 1) serve and access fishery and aquatic databases, 2) link to fishery and aquatic resource information sites and 3) act as larger scale coordinating site for fisheries and aquatic resources standards.

See the FAR Strategic Plan for more details.

FAR project development relies on partnerships with a variety of organizations, with two primary partners:


The Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment (PSIEE) - The PSIEE is the central structure for environmental research, education, and outreach at Penn State. As the FAR technical lead, PSIEE staff provide: (1) expertise needed to create FAR mapping applications, (2) integrated database development and search interfaces, and (3) servers to host FAR data and applications.

The Big Sky Institute (BSI) at Montana State University is an interdisciplinary center dedicated to creating, applying, and communicating science-based knowledge. The BSI Ecological Informatics Lab brings together natural sciences, geographic information systems (GIS), statistics, modeling, information technology, and computational programming with a comprehensive goal of making ecological data more available to society. As the FAR content lead, BSI provides (1) guidance in the direction of FAR development and structure, and (2) identification of data and informational resources.