[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Fabian Haas]

Dear Colleagues,

my apologies for the subject of this email, but I thing I have your 
attention. I am a taxonomist myself, and working a lot to make taxonomy 
matter on various plat forms, so no need to convince me about the 
importance of taxonomy.

What I am trying to find out i , why we seemingly have not succeeded in 
gathering more support for taxonomy in the last 10 yrs or so? Although 
we have high political support for the CBD, a variety of interesting 
projects, like EOL and GBIF, and many other plat forms distributing 
taxonomic information. These success have little contributed -in my 
opinion- to improve funding for the production of taxonomic knowledge.

Instead of lamenting again, and preaching to the converted, I would like 
to find out, why the donors dont seem to react, what are their reasons 
not to fund taxonomic work, at all, or at a level would be useful. So I 
am looking for their reasons, why they dont seem to receive our message 
that we need to taxonomy. And also why taxonomic aspects are often 
deleted form projects when money becomes tight, more often than other 
section. Taxonomy seems expensible.

I do have some suspicions, like they dont know what it is, they simply 
dont like the topic, they think everything is known, they thing we dont 
need it anyways, its a public good and so available, taxonomy would be 
complete, etc.

I will certainly try to talk the donors informally to find out what they 
think, but what I would like to ask this community, if you have any 
first hand experience, first hand statements on that. I will treat all 
information confidential if wished, and keep informant and, more 
importantly donor, anonymously. It is not about blaming someone, but I 
would like to better understand their perspective, with the ultimate 
goal to improve our communication strategy, and better address them. We 
did work a lot on our/taxonomist communication and I believe all the 
necessary answers are ready, collected by BioNET etc, but this change of 
perspective -ask the listeners why they dont listen- seems worth wile to me.

So Why does Taxonomy NOT matter??

Best & Looking forward to hearing from you!

  Fabian