[Taxacom] TROPICOS

[Jody Haynes]

Michael,

While I agree with its usefulness, I feel that I should point out that 
TROPICOS makes freely available precise GPS coordinates for many threatened, 
endangered, and critically endangered species -- including CITES Appendix 1 
listed species. While this type of information can be extremely useful to 
researchers studying a particular taxon, from a conservationist perspective 
I find this type of freely accessible locality information quite troubling, 
particularly considering that one of the primary threats to the plant group 
that I study is illicit collection of plants from habitat for black market 
trade. Comments on this issue from members of this group would be greatly 
appreciated.

Jody Haynes
President, The Cycad Society, Inc. (www.cycad.org)
Secretary, IUCN/SSC Cycad Specialist Group (www.cycadsg.org)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <michael.heads at yahoo.com>
To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 6:21 PM
Subject: [Taxacom] (no subject)



I think TROPICOS is fantastic, I use it all the time. The obvious 
improvement though would be to have it connected with databases of other big 
herbaria. This means you need a working list but this shouldn't be 
publicised as a definitive or official list. The focus shouldn't be on the 
list but on making the databases (a) available and (b) integrated so that, 
for example, a single map can be produced including specimens from the 
different collections (cf. the Australian National Botanic Gardens site).

Michael Heads

Wellington, New Zealand.

My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0



_______________________________________________

Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these 
methods:

(1) http://taxacom.markmail.org

Or (2) a Google search specified as: 
site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here