Nature Publishing Group has joined with other leading science publishers to develop a web portal called OARE (online access to research in the environment). The project provides countries in the developing world with free or reduced cost access to the scholarly environmental record, and is modelled on the HINARI and AGORA projects for health and agricultural communities, respectively, in which NPG is already a partner.

The United Nations Environment Programme, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization , Cornell and Yale universities are developing the OARE portal with the publishers. Yale university, for example, is contributing grants of $500,000. Its OARE activities are directed by Oswald Schmitz, professor of population and community ecology and associate dean of academic affairs for the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and Ann Okerson, associate university librarian for collections and international programs. As with HINARI and AGORA, Yale University library will provide much of the infrastructure for the OARE portal, via its collection of journals

OARE will use information and communication technologies, digitized global scientific information, and a creative public-private partnership to fulfill the information needs of environmental scientists in the developing world.

Further information can be found in this article by Maurice Long, publisher coordinator of these three projects.