[Taxacom] Who uses biodiversity data and why?

[Bob Mesibov]

David,

"Perhaps what organizations like GBIF require is a reporting system for 
users of occurrence data as self-validating compendia - the kind of reports 
politicians love to see."

I have no doubt that will happen. But the use of _local_ occurrence data for 
making _local_ decisions cannot "validate" GBIF, if the same thing had been 
happening before GBIF, and if the same thing happens independently of GBIF.

Please understand that I am not questioning the taxonomic or other 
bioscientific usefulness of universal access to all biodiversity data. I am 
questioning the argument, which I first heard after the Rio summit in 1992, 
that having this will improve the knowlege base for land managers and 
conservation planners working at all spatial scales. It _sounds_ reasonable 
until you remember how these people work. Tom Ball's statement (as quoted on 
TAXACOM by Wolfgang Lorenz) is just the same argument in other words, and to 
me it still sounds very, very weak.

We have had discussions earlier on TAXACOM about sensitive data and 
taxonomically ill-defined data. Here again there is a substantial 
local/global divide. For example, when approached for conservation advice at 
a local scale, I'm happy to share with planners all my relevant data in 
confidence: undescribed species, sensitive locations, the lot. I would 
consider it extremely unwise to share that same data with everyone on the 
planet for unspecified "global" or other broadscale purposes. (Yes, all my 
data goes into publications and a museum database when the new species are 
described, and in principle is then universally available. I'm talking about 
"pre-public" data. For lesser-known animal groups, that's a substantial 
proportion of what we know.)
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Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195

Tasmanian Multipedes
http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/zoology/multipedes/mulintro.html
Spatial data basics for Tasmania
http://www.utas.edu.au/spatial/locations/index.html
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