Matthew Van Dongen – Charlatan Staff, Carleton University

In less than 2 years with very little or no funding at all, thegreenpages.ca received over 5000 unique visitors a month and has been recommended by over 200 environmental organizations from across Canada and around the world. There are over 1500 web resources in our database and a consistent
flow of environment-related events and action alerts submitted to our web site on a weekly basis.

thegreenpages.ca
by MATTHEW VAN DONGEN Charlatan Staff, Carleton University

The Internet landscape is about to get a lot greener, thanks to Rex Turgano’s new environmental Web site www.thegreenpages.ca.

Turgano, a fourth-year environmental student at the University of Waterloo, says he created the site to provide a searchable database of environmental links for student research. It currently lists over 900 Canadian links, although prominent links from around the world are also available.

The site is unique not in its size, but in its organization. Turgano says he has sifted through every link he has collected over the past two years, categorizing them into more than 50 themes. These themes range from waste management to wetland protection to “green” business enterprises.

Turgano says the idea for the site originated in his frustration at the length of time it took students to research environmental information on the Internet. Other environmental databases, he says, “were all over the place.” Jeff London, of the Environmental News Network – an Internet-based environmental news provider – says the amount of environmental information on the Internet is overwhelming. He’s not alone.

“It’s important for someone to step in and put it together in an accessible way,” says Tony Ward, director of Brock University’s Centre for the Environment. Ward says upper-year students need the Internet for fast, reliable information. A site like Turgano’s is useful, he says, because hard-copy environmental research quickly becomes outdated.

Turgano is working to have the site ready for its official “opening day” on April 2001, coinciding with Earth Day. Although the site isn’t finished yet, it’s been available for viewing since Feb. 2000, and has already had over 20,000 visitors.

Preet Jaswal, an upper-year environmental student at University of Waterloo, is one of those visitors. He says that although there are many environmental sites available on the Internet, “none parallel the many dimensions and Canadian focus” offered by Turgano’s site.

Jaswal says the site is invaluable in his thesis work, adding there is a growing student need for a site like this at all educational levels.

Turgano has been adding onto the site constantly, thereby broadening the project’s scope. As of the new year, the site was posting environmental news, community events, job opportunities, and a free e-mail service.

Ultimately, Turgano says he’d like the site to provide “one-stop environment-information shopping.”

What surprises some people is that Turgano is a one-man show. A student in Russia recently called up Turgano and asked to join his “organization,” he says. “I had to break her heart – this is all me.”

He says he’s received a lot of feedback about the site, and not only from research students. A link to the site is featured prominently on the Globe and Mail’s Web page, and last summer Turgano received an Environmental Citizenship Award from Environment Canada for his efforts.

Despite the success he’s had so far, Turgano will continue to operate the site on a non-profit basis for now.

There is little advertising on the site, and he says his expenses are low. “I didn’t plan to make money off of this,” he says. “If it ends up happening, I guess that’d be nice.”