The Conservation Geoportal is a collaborative effort by and for the conservation community to facilitate the discovery and publishing of geographic information systems (GIS) data and maps, to support conservation decisionmaking and education. It is primarily a data catalog, intended to provide a comprehensive listing of GIS data sets and map services relevant to biodiversity conservation. The Conservation Geoportal does not actually store maps and data, but rather the descriptions and links to those resources, known as "metadata."