About the Book
Biodiversity has been identified as a key issue in the general debate about the sustainable use of the world’s natural resources. Major international efforts are now underway to assess and maintain biodiversity. However, there is an urgent need to collect, manage and disseminate information related to biodiversity in an efficient and effective way. The purpose of this book is to review the needs and opportunities for information and efficient information flows in support of world priorities in biodiversity. It is based on papers presented at a workshop held in London in July 1996, organized by CAB International with the support of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO), IUCN — The World Conservation Union and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Contributors include leading players from organizations concerned with conserving and managing biodiversity, based in Europe and the USA as well as developing countries.
Table of Contents:
1: Keynote Address 2: The importance of biodiversity information Sir Crispin Tickell, Green College, The Radcliffe Observatory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 3: Defining and Meeting Needs for Information 4: Information Needs in Biodiversity Assessments - From Genes to Ecosystems V H Heywood, University of Reading, UK 5: Assessing Information Needs for Sustainable Use and Conservation of Biodiversity Dan H Janzen, University of Pennsylvania, USA and R Gámez, INBio, Santa Domingo de Herdia, Costa Rica 6: Defining and Meeting Needs for Information: Agriculture and Forestry Perspective T J B Boyle, Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia and J M Lenné, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, India 7: Collecting and Managing the Information 8: Information Needs of Inventory Programmes D L Hawksworth and R K Mibey, University of Nairobi, Kenya 9: Wider Use and Application of Indigenous Knowledge, Innovations and Practices: Information Systems and Ethical Concerns D D Posey, The Oxford Centre for the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 10: Management of Information to Support Conservation Decision Making J R Busby, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK 11: Overview of the UNEP/GEF Biodiversity Data Management Project (BDM) F Duff, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya 12: Distributing the Information 13: The Role of Information in the Operation of the Convention on Biological Diversity C Juma, UNEP, World Trade Centre, Montreal, Canada 14: Designing Information Systems to Support Biodiversity Conservation B A Stein, The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, USA 15: Networks for Distributing Information V P Canhos, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil, G P Manfio, Tropical Culture Collection, Fundação de Pesquisas e Tecnologia, Brasil, D A L Canhos, Tropical Database, Fundacao de Pesquisas e Tecnologia, Brasil 16: Biodiversity: The Role of Information Technology in Distributing Information J R Burley, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, P R Scott, CAB INTERNATIONAL, Wallingford, UK and A W Speedy, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 17: Overall Conclusions 18: Final Report Recommendations
Review :
"Biodiversity is one of the ecological buzzwords of this decade, although it is often poorly defined or implemented, and is largely redundant with the old ecological concept of diversity. This book effectively points out that biodiversity information is not merely a listing of species, and that the lack of easy access to information severely hinders a wide variety of biological research and informed policy decision-making. The goal of this book is to enable readers to manage biodiversity information more effectively in order to achieve biodiversity policy goals. It contains twelve articles grouped into three topics: defining information needs, managing information acquisition, and effectively conveying the results to its consumers. Unlike many symposium publications, the articles in this book work as a coherent whole, leading to a final report that nicely sums up the needs for information management."--The Quarterly Review of Biology
