Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-44)
Professor Stephen Hopper, Dr Eimear Nic Lughadha,
Professor Mary Gibby, Dr Michael Dixon and Professor Richard Lane
19 FEBRUARY 2008
Q40 Lord Colwyn: Your answers to
my previous question showed that the internet may well provide
the opportunity to revolutionise taxonomy. UK scientists are showing
great leadership in developing the vision of taxonomy, yet pilot
schemes and projects that have demonstrated proof of concept of
various aspects of web-based taxonomy are rarely translated into
new working practices, and I wondered why that was. There is a
second part to that question: who in the UK is developing this
strategy to deliver this vision and is a UK-wide strategic plan
for a web-based access necessary for the long-term survival of
taxonomy in the UK?
Professor Lane: Concerning the vision for taxonomy
in the 21st century, recently a small group of us was invited
to come up with a vision as to how the whole of Europe might work,
and that is what I had the pleasure to chair, I took the vision
report to a board consisting of the major museums in Europe and
I am very pleased to say that it was very well received. Most
of the museums in Europe will now use that as their guide for
where their museums will develop, as well as this integrated structure
for Europe (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy). We have
not yet sat down and worked out what it means for the UK. We have
certainly already had some preliminary discussions with colleagues
from Kew about converting this vision to some kind of strategic
plan, but mainly in the context of how our two organisations play
within Europe, but we are also very cognisant of the fact that
we need to make a plan for how the UK takes its scientific agenda
forward. So, there is work to be done.
Dr Dixon: Inevitably, cost has to be discussed.
We talked about some of the American foundation-funded projects
and as an example the Biodiversity Heritage Library, which is
a big collaboration between nine major institutions, of which
certainly those represented around this table are participants.
It is funded to the tune of about $25 million over the next three
years, which gives you an idea of the scale of the investment
required to deliver these kinds of projects. Twenty-five million
dollars is approaching half of what the Natural History Museum
spends on science annually, which gives you an indication of the
size of cost that is required to deliver these projects. Proof
of concept or pilot projects can be developed often with external
funding and are easy to deliver but the full working version requires
resources that we just do not have access to in the main.
Q41 Baroness Walmsley: We heard from
Kew, in your evidence, that without baseline data, progress towards
the 2010 objective of halting biodiversity loss is simply not
going to be achieved. It makes sense to me that you do not know
how far you have come, if you do not know where you have started
from. That reminds me of the old Irish joke: how far to Tipperary?
Well I wouldn't have started from here! But I wonder if our other
witnesses would agree with that piece of evidence that we had
from Kew, and whether you think that other colleagues from other
institutions would also agree with it? And if not, why not?
Dr Dixon: Broadly, we would agree, but we are
also sympathetic to the argument that policy cannot wait for perfect
science; somewhere in the middle there is a happy medium. As with
many things, it is, are you setting the right targets, and is
the setting of those targets well enough informed by good evidence?
Largely, we are in agreement with Kew on this point.
Professor Lane: This comes back to the point
I was making at the beginning about the major challenges and they
are about how life on the planet changes. It is not just setting
the baseline—and there will be baselines because this cannot
be a one shot—but also it is about devising the science
to support measuring change, rather than absolutes. That is quite
a challenge, scientifically, and one that we are beginning to
tackle in a fairly serious manner. How you set the baseline is
important but it is also how you develop a science that tracks
changes.
Dr Nic Lughadha: In that context, much of the
baseline data that we need sits in the collections. This is not
a backdoor argument for digitising everything, but there is an
argument to say that a very judicious representative selection
of taxa could establish a baseline, which could then be reassessed
over time. All of our three institutions are collaborating with
the Zoological Society of London on the Sampled Red List Index,
which could provide a baseline of this sort, but, again, needs
further resources to enable it to succeed.
Q42 Earl of Selborne: Regarding the
commitments and obligations under the Convention on Biological
Diversity, is there any risk that we are going to fail to meet
such commitments and obligations because of our lack of strength
and capacity in taxonomy?
Professor Hopper: In a word, yes; it is just
that simple. You have to understand the units of biodiversity
in order to manage and care for them and to do all the access
and benefit sharing that CBD also involves UK organisations in.
The UK has responsibilities beyond its shores in this regard and
taxonomy is the underpinning foundation for implementing the Convention.
Earl of Selborne: Do you think the funding departments
understand the significance of this? We have three different funding
departments, presumably you remind them from time to time of the
obligations of the Convention. Do they respond?
Q43 Chairman: Or, to be blunt, when
did you last remind them of the obligations of the Convention?
Professor Hopper: A few weeks ago.
Professor Lane: I completely agree with Professor
Hopper that the answer is categorically that taxonomy underpins
just about all of these Convention obligations. The degree of
our compliance (to the CBD obligations), given the extraordinary
wealth of science and resource that we have, is a political judgment
call that needs to be made. Can we deliver to an expected level
given the base of both expertise and resource? Within our current
resources, the answer is, No. There are large numbers of ways
and I have here a document produced by the Global Diversity Information
Facility, which lists a number of examples of how species level
information of the kind that we were talking and the kind that
we should be providing under CBD and others, can be used to make
various policy judgments. We need to make our negotiators aware
of what our capacity is and also about our limitations to deliver.
Q44 Chairman: Would it be possible
to provide us with a copy of that report? It would be most useful.
Professor Lane: Yes, I will leave this copy
here.
Chairman: We are now at the end of the session.
I thank you all very much indeed. As I suggested at the beginning,
if there are points that you want to amplify or clarify or add
to comments that you have already made, that would be helpful.
Had we had more time, I might have asked you how we can promote
taxonomy to the wider public and community. Many thoughts have
been implicit in what you have said, but if you have more explicit
comments perhaps you would let us have them; that would be very
useful indeed. Thank you all very much; it is much appreciated.
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