[Taxacom] Cost of databases

[Stephen Thorpe]

Perhaps Donald would like to comment on GBIF's annual budget compared with the claimed US$114 million to complete "the knowledge databases which underpin nature conservation and environmental decision-making"?

Stephen


--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 30/8/16, Mary Barkworth <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu> wrote:

 Subject: [Taxacom] Cost of databases
 To: "(Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu)" <Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Tuesday, 30 August, 2016, 9:43 AM
 
 http://www.iucnredlist.org/news/paper-reveals-nature-conservation-knowledge-is-a-bargain
 (refering to a paper pulished in PLOSOne http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0160640
 
 The first three paragraphs of the commenting paper:
 
 
 
 A new study released today finds that the knowledge
 databases which underpin nature conservation and
 environmental decision-making - such as the IUCN Red List of
 Threatened Species(tm) - cost US$ 6.5 million annually to
 manage, plus the dedication of thousands of volunteers.
 
 The authors estimated that US$ 160 million plus 293
 volunteer-years have been invested to date in developing
 these datasets, and the shortfall to complete the datasets
 is approximately US$ 114 million.
 
 "This may sound expensive, but these costs are extremely low
 when compared with other societal expenditures, such as the
 Global Observing System for Climate, which required US$ 5 -
 7 billion to maintain in 2010," says Melanie Heath, Director
 of Science, Policy and Information at BirdLife
 International. "To put this in perspective, the annual
 consumer spending on soft drinks is in the order of US$ 380
 billion. Investing in these crucial datasets represents a
 bargain for society - the costs to create and curate them
 are easily outweighed by the benefits they deliver.
 [emphasis added]
 
 
 
 Now the challenge is to convert such information into
 support. Note: "The motivation for the study came from the
 private sector," says Diego Juffe-Bignoli, UNEP World
 Conservation Monitoring Centre, and lead author. "Companies
 which subscribe to the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment
 Tool - which provides financial support for Protected
 Planet, another of the datasets we costed in this research -
 often ask us how much investment would be necessary to
 maintain these critical data in perpetuity. Now we have an
 answer."
 
 The
 
 
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