[Taxacom] The Barometer of Life

Mon May 31 11:48:25 CDT 2010

[Making the assumption here that taxonomists actually have interests
beyond (mis|re|de|un)defining "synonymy"...]

I think we all are in pretty close agreement here. We do think that we
woefully understudy biodiversity, and investment there would be a Good
Thing, and that said investment must involve new real data, not just
rechewing the sparse available information. We're scientists, so we do
think that decisions should be based on evidence and data, not
unsupported opinion. But we also see that decisions are often taken in
willful disregard of the best available evidence.

Part of our job is to make the case that we need better biodiversity
information, and to push as hard as we can to make that information
count.

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com
dpentche at nhm.org

On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 11:15 PM, Donat Agosti <agosti at amnh.org> wrote:
> I am not so much concerned about the decision making which operates at a
> different level. The 60M USD do not go into the decision making but to
> deliver arguments to decision makers. My point is, that the authors do not
> deliver the right data.
>
> In this context it is interesting to follow the discussion on the impact of
> the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
>
> This is, what President Obama has said in his press conference
>
> "I think it is a legitimate concern to question whether BP's interests in
> being fully forthcoming about the extent of the damage is aligned with the
> public interest. I mean, their interest may be to minimize the damage and,
> to the extent that they have better information than anybody else, to not be
> fully forthcoming. So, my attitude is, we HAVE TO VERIFY WHATEVER IT IS THEY
> SAY [my emphasis] about the damage. This is an area, by the way, where I do
> think our efforts fell short.
> "
> Source http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/28/bp_oil_spill_confirmed_as_worst
>
> And here is a typical answer from the environmentalists
> "
> JUAN GONZALEZ: This is now the largest oil spill in American history, but
> there was a prior even bigger oil spill off the coast of Mexico back in-I
> think it was 1979. Could you talk about what was learned in terms of the
> impact of that spill on the Gulf?
>
> WENONAH HAUTER: Well, I THINK [my emphasis] that it takes many, many years
> for the species to be-to come back and that there are still impacts on the
> Gulf today.
> "
> This is not really a lot of detail of understanding what is happening
> comparing to the details she cites about BP etc. And the Golf is something
> close to the US, unlike the rest of the world where most of the biodiversity
> is.
>
> It also shows, WHY it is important that we have real data as opposed to
> guestimates.
>
> Donat
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Haas, Fabian [mailto:fhaas at icipe.org]
> Sent: Monday, May 31, 2010 10:17 AM
> To: Donat Agosti; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Cc: 'Bob Mesibov'
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] The Barometer of Life
>
> Let me add other observations to decision making. That does not work in one
> person in a sensible way. Just think of smoking. So obviously we make
> 'wrong' decision though we have all the knowledge to make the right one.
> Well the wrong might be the right on some other level...
>
> Further the guys doing the modeling and know everything about fish stocks,
> is not the customer, who things he is doing something good for himself
> eating fish... While depleting fish stocks... So good and bad a difficult
> concepts to grasp.
>
> So 'absolute' knowledge does not make decisions better, actually to much
> knowledge might even prevent you taking decisions at all. Not quite the out
> come intended.
>
> We had a CBD meeting recently here in Nairobi, and indeed they know that
> they cannot monitor everything, would not be useful, and feasible and again
> monitoring does not automatically trigger the biodiversity conserving
> decisions. Another matter is if the CBD is functional at all, or trying to
> do things it cannot do, since all the drivers of biodiversity loss, are by
> the structure of governments outside the Environment Ministries, such as
> traffic and agriculture and population growth. MoEs have little influence on
> other ministries and little legal leverage on customers...
>
> Well it seems, one knows something, and the other does something else....
>
> All the best nice start into the week!
> Fabian
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Donat Agosti
> Sent: Monday, May 31, 2010 7:50 AM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Cc: 'Bob Mesibov'
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] The Barometer of Life
>
> Decisions are a different matter. But at least in the fisheres there are
> fleets out there to study the fish populations. We do not have these tools
> and instruments in place, such as the Biodiversity Monitoring System in
> Switzerland (BDM-CH) that within 5 years surveys something like 2,500 plots
> and thus can compare the data.
>
> In this system there is a link from the observational data to the
> conclusions. And no data has been collected randomly as almost all the data
> is that goes into such tools as the Red Lists. This means, that there is no
> definition of what the data means, nor does it allow running monitoring
> program as is happening in the fisheries.
>
> Even the Convention on Biological Diversity was specific that not all
> biodiversity ought be monitored but those bits that are relevant.
>
> What happened in the last twenty years was not the development of strategies
> to monitor diversity beyond tiger and elephant, but always tools summarizing
> data that in my view are not suitable from a scientific point of view to
> make the bold statement being made with it. For a while, these statements
> have been fine, but their value diminished as it does not provide the
> necessary bases for land use and management.
>
> Biodiversity is just one element that finally leads to policy decisions, and
> thus better data is no guarantee for decisions in "our sense". But for me as
> a scientist I do have the pretension that I want to have a system that lives
> up to basic scientific principles, that is reproducibility and at least
> openness to critique, and to use the best technology available.
>
> Donat
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Mesibov [mailto:mesibov at southcom.com.au]
> Sent: Monday, May 31, 2010 8:58 AM
> To: Curtis Clark
> Cc: Dean Pentcheff; Donat Agosti
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] The Barometer of Life
>
> Hi, guys.
>
> Happy to continue this off-list while 'Objective Synonyms' rages.
>
> A great example I can give you of the disconnect between knowledge and
> decision-making is wild fishery management. Decades of research, millions of
> research vessel hours, good hard catch data, sophisticated modelling, global
> discussions on total allowable catch. With what result? Fishery after
> fishery collapsing from overfishing. We *know* we're stuffing the wild
> fisheries, we're doing it anyway because fish are food and there are more
> and more people wanting them and willing to pay for them.
>
> *Do* read Glovbal Biodiversity Outlook 3. It's scary as hell.
>
> Cheers,
> Bob
> --
> 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
> Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
>
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