6. The urgent need for
biodiversity information, Tom Hammond, IUCN
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Environmental degradation and species loss continue to accelerate.
Around the world, conservation and scientific organizations are
working against time to close critical knowledge gaps in order to
conserve biodiversity and the Earth’s life support systems.
Investment and development decisions are often taken with an incomplete
picture of potential impacts on biodiversity. While solutions may
be found to reverse these trends, this will only be possible with
comprehensive data, information and knowledge on the conservation
and sustainable use of biodiversity.
Accessing biodiversity data and sharing conservation knowledge
are not simple tasks, however. Much of the data, information and
knowledge conservationists require is fragmented, difficult to find,
or simply not accessible. This challenge is considerably magnified
in many developing countries – many of which are mega-diverse
countries – where the consequences of under development and
the “digital divide” present enormous challenges to
the realization of successful conservation efforts on the ground.
Plant biodiversity is an important case in point. The Global Strategy
for Plant Conservation underscores the pressing need for comprehensive
global data on plant diversity, distributions, status, and risks
– as a basis for coordinated conservation efforts. Yet despite
international efforts to improve access to plant data many gaps
in our knowledge remain – particularly important regional
gaps in key biodiversity “hotspots”, such as the Amazon
Basin and Congo Basin.
The success of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
in placing climate change firmly on the global agenda is premised
largely on open access to data, and the integration of that data
in predictive global climate models. A similar effort is required
in the biodiversity conservation community, integrating not only
biodiversity data but also multiple domains such as space-based
sensors, terrestrial weather, socio-economic data, and ocean and
terrain models – among others – into predictive models
for biodiversity.
A growing international cooperative effort of conservation organizations,
research agencies, and scientific institutions – the Conservation
Commons – is working to respond to this challenge, collectively
addressing barriers to access, more effectively connecting practitioners
to data and information assets, and developing and adopting standards
for integrating these assets to support the generation of knowledge
and best practice. Building on existing efforts and founded on a
common set of Principles, now endorsed by over 75 organizations,
the Conservation Commons seeks ensure open access and fair use of
data, information, and knowledge on the conservation of biodiversity
– for the global conservation community and beyond.
For more information please contact tom.hammond@iucn.org,
or call 514 287 9704, ext. 361
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