[Taxacom] Who uses biodiversity data and why?

[Thomas Moritz]

Some additional background to the discussion...

Recently, we have had good success in advancing the development of the
World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) which for the first time has
exposed for public access and use aggregated data and core descriptions
of the world's protected areas -- the database has doubled in size since
Version 1.0 was released at the Durban World Parks Congress (2003) and
almost immediately, first efforts were made to produce a global gap
analysis... [SEE: T.M. Brooks, et al. "Coverage Provided by the Global
Protected-Area System: Is It Enough?"  BioScience, V.54 (12): 1081-1091.
December 2004.  - and related articles in that issue]  

Some work has gone forward in developing practical, working species
inventories at site scale.  [See for example: RJ Meese, et al. Rapid
acquisition and dissemination of standardized biological inventories
from Russian Biosphere Reserves  Biodiversity and Conservation. V. 12
(7): 1421-1429 July, 2003. DOI 10.1023/A:1023685928666 Online Date
Thursday, October 28, 2004 .]

The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas has also initiated first
the "PARC" (Protected Areas Resource Centers) project and subsequently
PALNet (Protected Areas Learning Network) [SEE: http://www.parksnet.org/
] both of which conducted needs assessment exercises around the world
with protected areas managers -- from national and site levels -- to
identify the knowledge resources most likely to be of use to site
managers.   (I personally have participated in a number of these
assessments...)

Protected area managers and site-level conservationists *will* use these
tools when they are developed and made available in 
ways that do not require new investment of local resources (this strikes
me as closely analogous to the problem of delivering resources to
classroom teachers -- the tools *must* be well-designed and immediately
applicable to real, site-level problems
-- with a very short learning-curve...)

(There *are* actually good potential synergies between geographically
disparate sites  -- for example -- in 1994 while working in Pakistan, I
was approached by the manager of a mangrove ecosystem who asked how he
could communicate with managers of other such sites... )

The number of protected areas with adequate datbase inventories is
relatively small and an important question is whether the continued
development of global databases (both biotic and site-based) can rapidly
increase the availability of site-level inventories...?  And a related
question: how can we best develop and apply "industrial-strength"
engineering methods to accelerate the process of data-capture and
management...?   How can the global conservation community best and most
effectively invest in such synergistic efforts...? 

Tom Moritz

Tom Moritz
Associate Director and Chief, Knowledge Management
Getty Research Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California 90049
United States of America
1 310 440 6363 [voice]
1 310 440 7781 [fax]
<tmoritz at getty.edu>
GMT -8
>>> <Faunaplan at aol.com>  >>>
Dear All,
Arthur Chapman's argument is exactly what I'm thinking of, but Bob
Mesibov's 
question also touches what I'm concerned about, - and why I believe it's
more 
realistic to envision something like "unlocking" data, rather than
making all 
details freely accessible for all users and uses. Not only because of
the 
"sensitive data" argument but also because of a couple of other reasons,
the 
expectation to 'have-it-all-online' is far far away from today's reality
and 
probably will never be more realistic in future. However, services like
GBIF can 
play a very powerful role as a generator of synergy across country
borders - 
something that we never had before - which can open doors to
knowledgeable people, 
point to sources, and unlock treasures that are sofar hidden in our 
collections and in literature. Isn't it one of our main problems that we
don't even 
know what we know and where we have to search for existing knowledge?
I fear that support for GBIF will stop when expectations are set too
high and 
achievements continue to be so frustratingly low. My hope is that GBIF
will 
strengthen the focus on realistic first-step solutions, - e.g., in
context with 
the 2010 target, - that could motivate more data holders to join and
convince 
those who will have to decide on future financial support... 
(By the way, the link to Matt Ball's article in GeoWorld can be found
via <
www.biogeomancer.org>)

Best wishes,
Wolfgang
--------------------------------
Wolfgang Lorenz, Tutzing, Germany


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