ATBI 7/7 ERIN visit report

[Daniel Janzen]

ATBI WORKSHOP, 16-18 April 1993  Part 7 of 7 (ERIN Visit Report)

NOTE: This document is not part of the ATBI workshop per se. It presents
the summary conclusions of a workshop held in Canberra, Australia,
attended by participants from Indonesia (LIPI), Costa Rica (INBio), Mexico
(CONABIO), Kenya (the National Museums of Kenya), UK (The Natural History
Museum), several US institutions (Smithsonian, Missouri Botanical
Garden, SMASCH/MIP of UC Berkeley, TNC, the Sequoia Project, Bishop Museum
of Hawaii, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University), a US high-technology
company (Intergraph Corporation of Alabama), and several Australian
institutions.  The workshop's theme - the management, analysis, and
distribution of biodiversity information, sensu latu - is an issue that is
core to any ATBI. The final report for the workshop will be posted on
ERIN's gopher when completed.



     CONCLUDING STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP

     'Designing Spatial and Database Information Systems to Manage
Biodiversity Information'

1-5 March 1993, ERIN, ANPWS, Canberra, Australia
__________________________________________________________________


1) We wish to express our sincere gratitude to the Environmental Resources
Information Network (ERIN), the Australian National Botanic Gardens
(ANBG), and other sections of the Biodiversity Directorate of the
Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (ANPWS) for intellectually
and logistically hosting this international WOW (Window of Opportunity
Workshop) that was convened by the newly emerging Tropical Countries
Biodiversity Network (currently CONABIO of Mexico, INBio of Costa Rica,
Kenya National Museums, and LIPI of Indonesia) and attended by
representatives of numerous developed world biodiversity information
management institutions.

This WOW was attended by 27 persons from the international community, and
about 40 from within Australia, representing many government agencies and
NGOs.  Participants from INBio (Costa Rica) and LIPI (Indonesia) were
supported by US-AID.  All other costs were sustained by institutional or
private funds of the participants, and by ERIN, ANBG and ANPWS.


2) This particular WOW was convened on extremely short notice to take
advantage of the temporal juxtaposition of

   - the maturation of ERIN as a highly functional and pathbreaking
process in national networking, establishment of data management
standards, and data custodianship;
   - the emergence of four Tropical Biodiversity Information Processing
Institutions as integral parts of national development and seeking full
integration with the international biodiversity information network;
   - the convergence of major efforts by large museum and collection
systems (e.g., Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution, The
Natural History Museum (London), University of California at Berkeley
(MIP, and others), Association of California Herbaria, Bishop Museum, etc.
to develop computerized biodiversity information management models; and
   - a newly awakened international awareness that taxonomy and its
attendant information management processes are a major technological tool
both in the sustainable development of wildland biodiversity and the
application of its products to society.


3)  In the course of this WOW we were frequently reminded that:

* ERIN has been under very heavy selective pressure to produce a highly
focused product for government decision-makers, through organizing,
formatting and reworking primary GIS and biodiversity data gathered by
others. However, while biodiversity information management institutions
in tropical developing countries are subject to the same selective
pressure, they are also under very heavy selective pressure to respond to
private, public and government users throughout all walks of society. In
the US and Europe, by contrast, the selective pressures for the evolution
of biodiversity information management systems has been primarily from the
science and the conservation communities.

* Biodiversity information processing institutions have the opportunity to
fill a huge void in developing countries, a void that is partly filled in
developed countries by scientific and popular biodiversity literature,
nature centers, hobbyists and their clubs, TV, libraries, museums,
conservation NGOs, school and university courses, etc.

* Biodiversity information processing institutions need generalized
specialists at the bottom to effectively execute their mission, and
specializing generalists to wisely plan at the top.


4) The detailed conclusions of this WOW will appear on Internet within
about a month.  However, the participants wish to place special and rapid
emphasis on the following general conclusions about basic biodiversity
information.  In principle, and in the spirit of Agenda 21, basic
biodiversity information should be unrestricted and as accessible as
possible.  In particular:

* We strongly strongly endorse the ERIN philosophy of national electronic
networking with GIS and specimen data, development of biodiversity data
management standards, and development of data custodianship
responsibility.

* Basic specimen data and biodiversity data models, and the analyses of
them, should be made maximally available over the Internet.

* If membership needs to be charged for access to biodiversity
information, the charges should only be for maintenance costs rather than
for cost recovery;  fees should be negligible for academia, minimal for
non-profit institutions, and appropriate for commercial institutions.

* If there is to be restricted access to select biodiversity information
data obtained through basic taxonomic and inventory efforts, it should be
only to facilitate a process (e.g., conservation of endangered species,
researcher peace of mind) rather than to extract commercial profit.

* Plan now for international or endowed support into perpetuity for the
intellectual effort and costs of updating shared biodiversity data bases
(authority files, specimen data, species data, GIS layers, research
registries, etc.).

* Ensure - through technical innovation and inter-institutional
collaboration - that updating of a given international data base is
distributed in a reliable and timely manner to update national or local
data bases.

* Work toward technical systems and institutional agreements for full
international electronic repatriation of the biodiversity specimen data
currently stored and to be stored in association with the large
international collections.

* The 'price' of national access to the international biodiversity
information network and its derivative products (authority files, specimen
identification, updated taxonomy, geographic distributions for specimens,
literature, etc.) is full electronic internationalization of the
corresponding national information.

* Promote electronic networks as the much-preferred method for flow of
biodiversity information to and from (and within) all countries.

* Taxonomists are a world-level resource, and should be supported by
world-level aggregated resources.  However, obtaining the maximum
taxonomic output as a consequence of such resources will also require
substantial restructuring of the taxonomic workplace, mission and support
structure.

* The current efforts by developed and developing country biodiversity
information processing institutions to restructure themselves and their
activities in reponse to the opportunity and challenge of full and shared
electronic data management, as evidenced in the bustle of workshops and
reports, should be institutionally and inter-institutionally documented as
widely-circulated case studies.

* Now is the moment of opportunity for developed and developing country
biodiversity information processing institutions to fully network among
themselves, both electronically and philosophically.

* A major effort is needed to assist decision-making bodies at all levels
and in all institutions to recognize electronic management and
distribution of biodiversity information as a highly legitimate and
important academic, technical and social activity to be rewarded
accordingly.

* Priority should be given to the acquisition of primary point-based and
specimen-based data, rather than aggregated or interpreted data, as the
basis for biodiversity decision-making and analysis that are reviewable,
verifiable and freely combinable.

* Within the area of biodiversity management in general, international
funding agencies should be encouraged to support and encourage the
informal and opportunistic model of the international Window of
Opportunity Workshop convened inter-institutionally by middle-management
on a field of particular interest.


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For more information contact Winnie Hallwachs (FAX in USA 215-898-878O,
Internet in USA djanzen at mail.sas.upenn.edu) or John Busby (FAX in Australia :
61 6 25OO36O, Internet john at erin.gov.au)

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