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REEFhabilitation Portal Database Terms of Use

Last revised on December 1, 2023.

The REEFhabilitation Online Portal (“RHP”) is an online restoration monitoring portal provided by The Nature Conservancy (“TNC,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the RHP, so carefully read them and our Privacy Policy before using the RHP. By registering and using the RHP, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these Terms and our Privacy Policy, you cannot use the RHP or the RHP Data in any way or at any time. If you are using the RHP on behalf of a business (such as your employer), that business accepts these Terms by your use. In that case, the words “you” and “your” in these Terms refer to both you and that business.

The RHP was developed as an open-access, online database where coral reef restoration practitioners can register their restoration projects and sites and input restoration monitoring data for their coral nurseries and restoration sites (“Data”). Your submission to the RHP is voluntary. If you submit information to the RHP, these Terms grant TNC the right to see and use the Data uploaded to improve the functionality of the RHP as appropriate. The Data uploaded to the RHP, including your Data, will be made available to the public.

General Guidelines

We have the right to withdraw or change the RHP. As we describe below, we will not be liable to you if for any reason all or any part of the RHP is unavailable at any time or for any length of time.

TNC does not guarantee the completeness or accuracy of data stored in this portal. Many projects in the RHP represent in-progress monitoring, and thus incomplete information may be present.

Projects in the RHP are treated independently within the database and are created and managed by users. Restoration sites should not be assumed to be unique across projects.

Your Responsibilities

Only upload Data to the RHP if you have all necessary rights to share the information with us, including but not limited to use with the RHP. You are solely responsible for your conduct and your submission while using the RHP including compliance with all privacy and other applicable laws. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have the rights or permission needed to comply with these Terms.

If uploading data about threatened or at-risk species and populations, users are expected to determine appropriate permissions to protect and promote the conservation of study populations and individuals.

Do not upload Data that was obtained illegally or that is unrelated to coral reef conservation, restoration, or monitoring.

All users that upload data to the RHP (“Data Owners”) agree to provide, along with the project details, a current contact who is able to respond to questions about the study or requests for use of study Data.

Any Data downloaded from the RHP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 License. Use of the Data is limited to conservation or scientific purposes and may not be used for commercial purposes by any user other than the Data Owner. The user hereby commits to acknowledge the RHP and the Data Owner as the data sources when Data received from TNC (through the RHP) is used in the preparation of reports, papers, publications, maps, and any other products. Any use, display or incorporation of Data shall include the date on which such information was provided. The user also agrees to provide TNC and the Data Owner, at no cost to TNC or the Data Owner, a digital copy of any Geo-Spatial Data, tabular data, reports, imagery, drawing(s), plan(s), and any other form of result that were derived directly or indirectly from the use of the Data provided by TNC through the RHP along with its associated metadata. Any Data that is shared with a third party should be shared in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License and should include the following disclaimer and waiver of liability displayed prominently so as to alert any person viewing or utilizing this information:

NOTICE: It is understood that, while The Nature Conservancy and its partners of information have no indication or reason to believe that there are inaccuracies or defects in information incorporated in the base map, The Nature Conservancy and its data partners make NO REPRESENTATIONS OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE, NOR ARE ANY SUCH WARRANTIES TO BE IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION OR DATA FURNISHED HEREIN.

When accessing Data owned by other users, you agree to comply with these Terms and to follow the RHP’s Citation Guidelines below.

We strongly encourage users to make a reasonable attempt to contact the Data Owners about intended uses and to offer co-authorship or other credit as appropriate for publications or products resulting from the use of the Data. Data Owners are interested in learning about new uses of their Data, have important insights about how to properly analyze and interpret their Data, and might have additional data they would be willing to contribute.

Respect the law. Do not use the RHP for any fraudulent or unlawful purpose including violations of statutory, regulatory or contractual law. Respect copyright, privacy, trade secret, data protection, wildlife and all other laws. Do not attempt to impersonate any other individual on the RHP; if you identify yourself, you must always use your true identity.

Without our express written consent, you may not use, display, mirror, or frame the RHP, any element within the RHP, or any proprietary elements belonging to us (including but not limited to our logos and marks). In addition to adhering to all applicable laws and regulations, you may NOT do any of the following:

  • Resell the RHP or Data from the RHP, or any portion thereof;
  • Access or search the RHP Data by using any engine, software, tool, agent, device or mechanism (including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools or the like) other than the software and/or search agents that we provide or authorize;
  • Probe, scan, tamper with, or test the vulnerability of the RHP or any of our systems or networks;
  • Avoid, breach, deactivate, impair, or circumvent any security or authentication measures, including those that protect the RHP and its Data;
  • Attempt to decipher, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer any of the software used to provide the RHP;
  • Interfere with, or attempt to interfere with, the access of any user, host or network, including, without limitation, by sending a virus, overloading, or flooding the RHP;
  • Encourage or enable anyone else to do any of the foregoing.

We have the right to investigate violations of these Terms or conduct that affect the RHP or our systems or networks. We may also consult and cooperate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute users who violate the law.

Data Access by The Nature Conservancy

  • TNC will not edit data, project, or site settings without the permission of the Data Owner for that project.
  • TNC may report aggregate information about all Data in the RHP, for example website analytics on website users and page views, as well as the total number of coral reef restoration sites, number of active projects, number of contributors, number of monitoring events over time, and/or number of coral colonies and species outplanted.
  • TNC RHP site administrators will manage all Data in this portal. TNC will work to identify errors, quality control issues, or causes of site performance problems, as well as store an offline copy of all Data in case of site issues. TNC may notify users with suggestions or questions to improve user experience or the quality of Data on RHP.
  • TNC will not share any personal user data or project data with third parties unless publicly available. For more information, see the statement on our Privacy Policy below.
  • TNC will store and manage an offline copy of Data from projects, for use in relevant conservation or restoration projects, including those by TNC. TNC will credit Data Owners according to RHP guidelines. TNC will destroy its offline copy of any data that is removed from the RHP by the Data Owner within 90 days of its removal or restriction, but will not delete any derivative works that were created while the data was publicly accessible.

Modifying our Terms of Service

TNC reserves the right to change these Terms at any time and without notice. Please look at the “LAST UPDATED” legend above to see when these Terms were last revised. Your use of the RHP after the posting of any revised Terms means that you accept and agree to be bound by the revised Terms. If you do not agree to be bound by the revised Terms, then you may no longer use the RHP. You can stop using the RHP at any time. We may also stop providing the RHP or add or create new limits to the RHP at any time.

Disclaimers, Limited Liability, and Indemnity

The user hereby acknowledges that the Data is subject to constant change and that its accuracy, including but not limited to, its accuracy as to labeling, dimensions, boundaries, placement, or location of any map features therein, cannot be guaranteed.

All Data is provided “as is”, with potential faults, errors and without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, quiet enjoyment, and non-infringement. Additionally, TNC does not warrant that the Data will meet the user’s requirements or that the operation of the Data will be uninterrupted, secure or error free, or that data defects will be corrected. The entire risk as to the quality, performance and usefulness of the Data rests with the user. Users are responsible for taking all necessary precautions to ensure that any content you may obtain from the RHP is free of viruses or other harmful code.

The user, in using this Data, hereby releases TNC, our subsidiaries and affiliates, and our and their respective officers, directors, agents, partners, consultants, contractors and employees from any and all claims, actions, or causes of action for damages including, but not limited to, any costs of recovering, reprogramming or reproducing any programs or data stored in or used with the Data, damage to property, damages for personal injury or for any lost profits, lost savings, or other special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of or inability to use the Data, even if such parties have been advised of the possibility of such damage.

You agree to indemnify and hold TNC and our subsidiaries and affiliates, and our and their respective officers, directors, agents, partners, consultants, contractors and employees harmless from any and all liability claims or damages to any person or property arising from or connected with (i) your access to or use of the RHP, (ii) your Data, or (iii) your violation of these Terms.

Termination

We may terminate your access to and use of the RHP, at our sole discretion, at any time and without notice to you. Upon any termination, discontinuation, or cancellation of the RHP, all provisions of these Terms that by their nature will survive. This includes, for example ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, and limitations of liability.

Citation Guidelines

Citing this website in general

REEFHabilitation.org: The Nature Conservancy’s REEFhabilitation Portal (year). Available from https://REEFHabilitation.org/ [11 March 2022].

Citing a specific page on this website

ReefHabilitation.org: The Nature Conservancy’s REEFhabilitation Portal (year), REEFhabilitation Home Page. Available from: https://ReefHabilitation.org. [11 March 2022].

Privacy Policy

Please refer to our Privacy Policy for a description of how we collect, use and disclose Data and the personal information of site visitors and registered users collected on the RHP. Our privacy policy explains which data we record when you visit or register at REEFHabilitation.org and how they are used.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) takes the protection of your personal data very seriously. We process personal data gathered when visiting our websites in compliance with applicable data protection legislation. We neither publish your data nor transmit them to third parties on an unauthorized basis.

TNC requires that all users register on the RHP and agree to the RHP Terms of Use in order to view, upload, or download data. TNC or registered users may contact users with questions about the datasets they have uploaded. To request deletion of a user account and personal data, contact reefhabilitation@tnc.org.

Data and Website Security

  • TNC does not guarantee uninterrupted data access to projects or data feeds.
  • TNC is committed to maintain the RHP long-term but does not guarantee permanent storage or public visibility of Data on the RHP. In the event TNC is no longer able to maintain the RHP, advanced notice of 30 days will be provided to all RHP users and users will have the opportunity to download their Data from the RHP TNC will destroy its offline copy of any data that was restricted on the RHP by the Data Owner within 90 days of the date on which the RHP is shut down but will retain Data that was shared publicly in RHP.
  • TNC may remove datasets that contain major errors or for which it cannot reach the owner to resolve an issue.
  • Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”) encryption is used on all REEFhabilitation web pages and APIs on which data are transferred and managed.
  • TNC may disable user accounts if use interferes with normal operations of the database or website.
  • TNC will maintain secure, non-public back-up copies of all Data uploaded to RHP and will destroy those backups in accordance with the provisions of these Terms.

Miscellaneous

These Terms are the entire and exclusive agreement between you and TNC regarding the RHP, and they supersede any prior agreements between you and us regarding the RHP.

These Terms do not create any third party beneficiary rights. You may not assign or transfer these Terms, by operation of law or otherwise, without our prior written consent. Subject to the foregoing, these Terms will bind your successors and permitted assigns. We may freely assign or transfer these Terms without restriction.

If you do not comply with these Terms, and we do not take action right away, this does not mean that we are giving up any rights that we may have to take action in the future or seek all available remedies.

If a particular provision of these Terms is not fully valid or enforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and this will not affect any other Terms.

All claims arising out of this Agreement or relating to the RHP will be governed by the laws of the state of Virginia, excluding the application of its conflicts of law rules. Any legal action or proceeding arising out of this Agreement or relating to these Services shall be brought exclusively in a state or federal court in or for the state of Virginia. You agree that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with these Terms or your Submission shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms of Use, please email us at reefhabilitation@tnc.org.