Protecting collections by raising the perceived status of systematics

[pierre deleporte]

At 10:45 17/04/2003 -0500, Gerald R. Noonan wrote :

>   (...)
>
>8. We need a national organization of systematists that would include
>botanists, herpetologists, mammalogists, entomologists, etc.. That
>organization should have annual meetings that are highly attended by
>systematists. We need to pull together as a group rather than going off into
>our own taxon based disciplines.
>(...)


In France, we call it the French Systematics Society (SFS), and years 
before developing classic activities of all scientific societies (and of 
course dealing with general topics in systematics and avoiding redundance 
with societies specialised on a taxon), it started as a group of defense of 
systematics, taxonomy and museum collections. This is, in the beginning, a 
full-time task for such a society.

SFS still has several hundreds of members at the present time, and is the 
legitimate systematics spokesman in our country.

Just to hint that it's possible.

best,
Pierre


Pierre Deleporte
CNRS UMR 6552 - Station Biologique de Paimpont
F-35380 Paimpont   FRANCE
Téléphone : 02 99 61 81 66
Télécopie : 02 99 61 81 88