SUBJECT: The politics of biodiversity
AUTHOR: Alan Feest
DATE: 16 April 2003

KEYWORDS: Indicators, biodiversity assessment, standardised methods.

SUMMARY: The logic for a decision making process for making decisions relating to the valuing and preservation of biodiversity is discussed leading to a separate list of questions that should be addressed.

As usual, Martin Sharman has put his finger on the essential element of our discussions: how to turn biodiversity research into information for making sensible and appropriate decisions. I have a background in politics and business before becoming an academic so can see how difficult it is for scientists to provide what a decision maker needs. The clarity of information is not always available.

There are two approaches to this:
a) one is to deal with probability and make decisions through risk analysis and hierarchies of probability.
b) two is to encourage scientists to start their research from the point of view that the results will have utility in decision making.

I wish to address the latter of these options.

Much research is criticised by decision makers for not meeting their needs c.f. Martin's latest contribution. In biodiversity it is both more important and apparently even more difficult to make these decisions due to the overwhelming nature of the totality of biodiversity. The "quick and dirty" answer has been to use indicators but this has the difficulty of the very definition of indicators in that indicators may be present without the factors that they indicate or the obverse; the factors may be present but not the indicator. It then comes down to the effectiveness of any particular indicator and the probability of their accuracy. A more useful element is that indicators can be "furry and fluffy" animals that are popular and well known and thus easily communicated to the public and the non-expert decision maker.
To me as a scientist this pragmatic approach carries with it the risks given above and also is subject to the "slime mould" effect. It is very difficult to generate enthusiasm or interest for something called a slime mould regardless of how important they might be in the totality of biodiversity and ecosystem function (and I speak from a painful experience in just this area of research!). A more "fluffy" version of the slime mould effect would be the "Wart Hog" effect!!

Scientists therefore need to assist the biodiversity decision makers by providing information that is both concise and accurate. I have in mind the study conducted over a 25 year period of the macrofungi fruiting in a Scottish Woodland. Two scientists recorded these fungi every year for 25 years and found that new species were occurring at the same rate after 25 years as when they originally started. They could provide a very long species list! What could be made of this list which in fact resembled so much of the biodiversity information extant? The sort of list that says 245 species of fly have been found on a site over the last 30 years but when examined most of the species were only found once and only 45 in the last year. Are they all there or not? How much effort went into collecting this information compared to information for other sites? What does this list mean in terms of the totality of the biodiversity of the site compared to any other? How important is the fly biodiversity in the totality of the site's biodiversity? How does this list relate to the socio-economic factors that form the background to decision making?

I would suggest the way forward might look like the following:
- sites need to be scoped in the same way that EIAs and SEAs are scoped;
- a generalist ecologist looks at the site and suggests the most useful elements of the total biodiversity to be studied. These elements are then assessed in a standardised way such that the site can be compared with any other. That indicator groups might be used in this latter stage is possible but can lead to the undervaluing of other taxa and the difficulties given above.

Questions in this approach would be:
a) what is the appropriate time spann and season for the studies?
b) where do we get the generalist ecologist from?
c) can we compile a series of vegetation indicators for scoping a study?
d) how do we deal with obscure or taxonomically difficult groups that are nonetheless part of biodiversity e.g. nematodes or slime moulds?
e) what do we do with all of the historical records that do not conform to the new data?
f) how are we to decide what are the standardised protocols for making the numerical biodiversity assessments?
g) can we agree on the relative importance of the biodiversity indicated for the groups studied?
h) can we link this sort of approach to the politico-socio-economic background of the decision makers?

Just a few questions!

I have made a start to this process with standardised methods for macrofungi, bryophytes and spiders (and soon land molluscs) but this work needs to be connected into the decision making processes to bring clarity and transparency to the aid of the decision maker.

A contribution by:

Alan Feest
Faculty of Engineering
Bristol University, UK