Future directions
249
focuses on the conservation threat status of each
species (Stuart et al. , 2010 ).
These global initiatives will, at a conservative estimate, take at least a decade to complete (Thomas,
2009 ), although this may be either overly pessimistic
or optimistic, depending on technological advances
and socio - economic trends. The hopeful view is that
advances in automated species identifi cation and
remote sensing hardware will rapidly accelerate the
current rate of data acquisition. A less rose - tinted
assessment is that limited funding and the shifting geo -
political climate may critically impede the progress of
many initiatives.
Although global bioinformatics initiatives such as
the GBIF provide important data for research and practice, in general they lack specifi c tools and applications
to assist real - world decisions about the conservation,
management and the sustainable use of biodiversity
(see also Section 10.2.3 below). Biodiversity information is also increasingly being seen as important for
decision - makers in other sectors such as agriculture,
fi sheries, and tourism.
Several countries, realizing the importance of providing high quality biodiversity data to their decision -
makers in a form that is accessible and useful, have
responded by creating more spatially focused regional
or national biodiversity information management
initiatives. These typically tend to concentrate more
upon providing the information and tools required for
policy, governance and management across different
sectors.
For example, the recently implemented Inter -
American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN:
www.iabin.net ) project aims to:
1 develop an internet - based decentralized network to
provide access to scientifi cally credible biodiversity
information that currently exists in individual institutions and agencies in the Americas;
2 provide the tools necessary to draw knowledge from
that wealth of resources, which in turn will support
sound decision - making concerning the conservation
and sustainable use of biodiversity.
The eventual impact of these various initiatives on
the sum total of global biogeographical knowledge
should be immense. By processing and collating the
data that already exist in scattered and largely inaccessible form, they pave the way to better forecasts and
more informed environmental decision - making about
conservation, natural resource management, agriculture, sustainable development, etc. There may also be
International ’ s hotspots scheme require data on both
richness and geographical distribution (to assess endemism) but, being a coarse global analysis, the data
required do not need to be of the same resolution as
needed for within - country protected area planning
frameworks. Even so, the CI hotspots analysis is premised on the assumptions that the plant species richness
of large geographical areas can be deemed reasonably
complete and that the distributions of species is generally known well enough to judge the endemism of each
area. In addition, the scheme requires baseline assessments of ‘ original ’ and present natural vegetation
cover – data that are typically crudely specifi ed at
regional scales, and which often become increasingly
poorly specifi ed at fi ner scales of analysis (Chapter 3 ).
These problems are general to strategic conservation
planning; the application of selection algorithms and
other methods for the optimal design of representative
protected area networks also require detailed information on species numbers, identities and geographical
distributions (Chapters 4 to 6 ). Moreover, the accuracy
of forecasts about the future distributions (and possible
extinction) of species under climate change or any
other sort of environmental change are also critically
constrained by the quality of their input data
(Whittaker et al. , 2005 ; Ladle, 2009 ).
Given the central role of robust biogeographical data
in the development of conservation biogeography,
efforts to address the Wallacean and Linnean shortfalls
are likely to be of continuing importance for a long
time to come, although there are several important
initiatives in play that hold the promise for rapid
advances in the coming years and decades (Chapter 4 ).
One such area is the production of a defi nitive global
species list that can be used to resolve problems such
as synonomy. The ‘ Catalogue of Life ’ (CoL: www.
catalogueofl ife.org ), which aims to become a comprehensive catalogue of all known species of organisms on
Earth, now has 1.1 million species on its annual checklist (Thomas, 2009 ). Species occurrence records are
also rapidly accumulating, most notably through the
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF: www.
gbif.org ), which provides access to 189 million species
occurrence records to date. More ambitious and data
rich bioinformatics projects are also under way, such
as the much vaunted ‘ Encyclopedia of Life ’ ( www.
eol.org ) project (initiated in 2007) detailed in Chapter
4 . Most recently, some conservationists have suggested
that the IUCN Red List system needs to be expanded
into a project dubbed the ‘ Barometer of Life ’ , which
249
focuses on the conservation threat status of each
species (Stuart et al. , 2010 ).
These global initiatives will, at a conservative estimate, take at least a decade to complete (Thomas,
2009 ), although this may be either overly pessimistic
or optimistic, depending on technological advances
and socio - economic trends. The hopeful view is that
advances in automated species identifi cation and
remote sensing hardware will rapidly accelerate the
current rate of data acquisition. A less rose - tinted
assessment is that limited funding and the shifting geo -
political climate may critically impede the progress of
many initiatives.
Although global bioinformatics initiatives such as
the GBIF provide important data for research and practice, in general they lack specifi c tools and applications
to assist real - world decisions about the conservation,
management and the sustainable use of biodiversity
(see also Section 10.2.3 below). Biodiversity information is also increasingly being seen as important for
decision - makers in other sectors such as agriculture,
fi sheries, and tourism.
Several countries, realizing the importance of providing high quality biodiversity data to their decision -
makers in a form that is accessible and useful, have
responded by creating more spatially focused regional
or national biodiversity information management
initiatives. These typically tend to concentrate more
upon providing the information and tools required for
policy, governance and management across different
sectors.
For example, the recently implemented Inter -
American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN:
www.iabin.net ) project aims to:
1 develop an internet - based decentralized network to
provide access to scientifi cally credible biodiversity
information that currently exists in individual institutions and agencies in the Americas;
2 provide the tools necessary to draw knowledge from
that wealth of resources, which in turn will support
sound decision - making concerning the conservation
and sustainable use of biodiversity.
The eventual impact of these various initiatives on
the sum total of global biogeographical knowledge
should be immense. By processing and collating the
data that already exist in scattered and largely inaccessible form, they pave the way to better forecasts and
more informed environmental decision - making about
conservation, natural resource management, agriculture, sustainable development, etc. There may also be
International ’ s hotspots scheme require data on both
richness and geographical distribution (to assess endemism) but, being a coarse global analysis, the data
required do not need to be of the same resolution as
needed for within - country protected area planning
frameworks. Even so, the CI hotspots analysis is premised on the assumptions that the plant species richness
of large geographical areas can be deemed reasonably
complete and that the distributions of species is generally known well enough to judge the endemism of each
area. In addition, the scheme requires baseline assessments of ‘ original ’ and present natural vegetation
cover – data that are typically crudely specifi ed at
regional scales, and which often become increasingly
poorly specifi ed at fi ner scales of analysis (Chapter 3 ).
These problems are general to strategic conservation
planning; the application of selection algorithms and
other methods for the optimal design of representative
protected area networks also require detailed information on species numbers, identities and geographical
distributions (Chapters 4 to 6 ). Moreover, the accuracy
of forecasts about the future distributions (and possible
extinction) of species under climate change or any
other sort of environmental change are also critically
constrained by the quality of their input data
(Whittaker et al. , 2005 ; Ladle, 2009 ).
Given the central role of robust biogeographical data
in the development of conservation biogeography,
efforts to address the Wallacean and Linnean shortfalls
are likely to be of continuing importance for a long
time to come, although there are several important
initiatives in play that hold the promise for rapid
advances in the coming years and decades (Chapter 4 ).
One such area is the production of a defi nitive global
species list that can be used to resolve problems such
as synonomy. The ‘ Catalogue of Life ’ (CoL: www.
catalogueofl ife.org ), which aims to become a comprehensive catalogue of all known species of organisms on
Earth, now has 1.1 million species on its annual checklist (Thomas, 2009 ). Species occurrence records are
also rapidly accumulating, most notably through the
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF: www.
gbif.org ), which provides access to 189 million species
occurrence records to date. More ambitious and data
rich bioinformatics projects are also under way, such
as the much vaunted ‘ Encyclopedia of Life ’ ( www.
eol.org ) project (initiated in 2007) detailed in Chapter
4 . Most recently, some conservationists have suggested
that the IUCN Red List system needs to be expanded
into a project dubbed the ‘ Barometer of Life ’ , which