Evolution of Collective Knowledge

In September 2000 147 heads of State met at the United Nations to discuss the question of pervasive poverty and lack of development.  This summit produced the United Nations Millennium Declaration, laying out eight goals to free the human race from want.  Not surprisingly, among these eight is the goal of environmental sustainability, and one of the key targets listed is to reverse the loss of environmental resources, measured by areas protected to maintain biological diversity.

Despite persistent uncertainty about the best ways to protect biodiversity in the face of rapid environmental change, parks and other kinds of protected areas continue to be popular solutions for nature conservation. Managers of protected areas have long understood that they cannot protect the diversity and integrity of nature by ring-fencing it; a dynamic process like biodiversity doesn't exactly lend itself to human control, especially not by drawing lines on maps. Sure, there are important interventions we can make, like restoring degraded landscapes and returning captive bred species to native habitats.  But these are rear-guard efforts that by themselves cannot staunch the hemorrhage of species that characterizes the Anthropocene epoch.  

The reason we call our parks and preserves "protected" areas is that our management interventions are largely focused on controlling the one variable that we actually have some control over; ourselves.  But because of the myriad and ever changing ways that humans interact with and on nature, keeping up is a process of continuous adaptation. In this kaleidoscopic environment, understanding if and how we are having an impact is key. For adaptive management to work tools to measure and evaluate effort and result have to be accessible to managers.  Protected area monitoring and information systems help us to identify interventions and make the best use of available resources for conservation. 

And all of this is happening in real time.  Threats can overwhelm protected areas long before data is gathered, analyzed and the results are published. Critical elements, such as mapping and spatial analysis, are often unpublished, and may be scattered. In many cases, there's little to turn to but experience and gut instinct.  This is where the art of protected area management comes in.   At times like this, you need to tap into the collective wisdom of your peers.  

Protected area managers are as important to the planetary life support system as doctors are to human health.  Many elements are required to achieve a standard of professionalism in protected area management equivalent to that of medicine, including training, facilities, laws and regulations.  A knowledge base for all aspects of protected area management – the collective "mind" of the profession, is essential for the advancement of biodiversity conservation during a period of tremendous change. 

The Conservation Biology Institute's Data Basin has been designed to meet this need. Its Protected Areas Center not only provides a place to aggregate and share spatially aware data, but also provides tools to link the people who produce and use data around common interests.  Think of it as "space-face" for the conservation community.  Data Basin makes it possible to harness the collective knowledge from park management, park science, and allied disciplines to collect, catalogue, share, search and access knowledge about the world's protected areas and their management.  Participants can organize groups around topics and issues, and can create their own personal space for their work.  

Data Basin makes important strides in the evolution of the collective knowledge about site-based conservation.  There are still limitations, language for one, bandwidth for another. But it is still a quantum leap ahead of the static information "portals" that dominate the information landscape.  

I'm a student of the factors that can contribute to resilience in human communities.  In thinking about the ways in which Data Basin is potentially a breakthrough in protected areas knowledge, it occurred to me that resilience can apply to epistemic communities as well as to communities defined by space and time. Conservation's greatest contribution may be in redefining relationships – and how we approach relationships. Conservation causes us to rethink the relationship between places, processes, even people.  We're lucky to have a virtual main street in which to congregate and explore these; but sustaining it must become a community effort. Data Basin is like a new town - to be real it has to be inhabited.  At the risk of sounding like a realtor, I think you'll like this location.