Dear Alan,

You point at the right thing. We need a database and we need continuous standardized sampling, based on the best scientific basis.
This means that good fieldworkers should be hired for steady jobs. Good fieldworkers really have affinities with nature! Outside the season they can put info in the data-base.
Perhaps I am a little bit impolite here,but I would like to express that some civil servants and other deskworkers could just as well work at other organisations.
Of course we need pro-active politicians, civil servants and other desk workers, but without good fieldwork we are nowhere.
So this is a plea to support numerous fieldworkers and a few data-managers.
Alan you talk about protected sites. The Natura 2000 network includes many of the better sites. We have to know what the quality of a site was at the initial start of the designation in order to assess the developments after designation.
Do we have these data?
Owners of these sites have responsibility, but should not the money to support such monitoring-work be supplied by the authorities anyway?
Only few arthropods are mentioned in the Habitat Directive, macrofungi not at all. There is a lot of work to do.
We really need the politicians and civil servants that can influence national authorities and Brussels to include all kinds of taxa in the assessment of biodiversity quality.
Public awareness and affinity is very important too. We need more movies like " microcosmos". During Christmas holidays we can watch them.
With such movies you can make money too! Just ask Walt Disney.

So what about using the 10M for making a good movie promoting biodiversity and which sells at the same time 100M?...
Best,
Jan Jansen
Radboud University Nijmegen
ICN-ECL Our Common European Cultural Landscape Heritage.