Martin

If we are talking real money then I know what I would do with 10M Euros/pounds/dollars. I would create a database of biodiversity in protected sites and threatened sites across Europe where the information had been collected by a standardised sampling method and provided measured information (numbers!). Only by using data collected in a standardised way are we able determine not only if change has occurred but also the degree of change. The taxonomic groups chosen for this study would not necessarily be the glamorous ones like birds but the one that are either ecosystem keystone organisms (Macrofungi) or sensitive to climate/ecosystem change (spiders, moths, beetles). This scheme would allow resampling to take place at later times to determine change and the rate of change. Indicators will not do this no matter how much we might wish they would. Since this would need a great deal of taxonomic expertise and half of the 10M would need to be for training.

As it is now near Christmas should I be asking for this from St Nicholas or the EU?
Alan

--On 24 November 2004 16:05 +0000 science-policy Listmanager
wrote:

> From: "Martin Sharman"
>
> Dear Ferdinando,
>
> You say "...the 10 million funding was rethorically posed as an absurd
> hypothesis, with an absurdly great amount of money for such an issue. "
>
> In fact I chose this amount because this is more or less the accounting
> unit that consortia have used for the proposals for "Integrated Projects"
> and "Networks of Excellence" in the biodiversity work programme in the
> 6th Framework programme. In other words, projects worth 10 million of the
> taxpayer's euros are what we are now used to dealing with, no matter how
> "absurdly great" this amount of money may seem.
>
> I genuinely want to know what could be done for this amount of money, and
> what people think would be a good investment in biodiversity research at
> this scale. Why? Because the 7th Framework Programme will also fund IPs
> and NoEs, and presumably the accounting unit will remain, roughly, 10
> million.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Dr Martin Sharman
> Head of Biodiversity Sector
> Unit DI-4 Natural Resources Management and Services
> Directorate General for Research
> European Commission
> CDMA 21 3/165 Rue de Champs de Mars 21
> B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
>
>
>
>
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>



----------------------
A Feest, Engineering Management Group
A.Feest@bristol.ac.uk