The objective of the Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation (Conservation) project is to link data on threatened species and habitats with information about responses by society to threats to biodiversity.
Nadia McLaren, project manager, is an environmental consultant who believes in the global need for wide vision in conservation issues. She says, "a few conspicuous species, such as the large mammals, get a great deal of attention. There is a much bigger story to be told. Millions of species and habitats under threat." Correlating large amounts of normally incompatible information from multiple sources will make it possible to understand how the world's behavioural, social, economic and biological contexts interact. This, in turn, will permit better decisions for sound environmental policy.
Integrating data: reframing a technical challenge
Anthony Judge of the Union of International Associations, project co-ordinator, states that "The initial challenge was to link our data with that of others without using a rigid integrating framework. Together with our other data-holding partner, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), we have reframed the notion of integrating data through the extensive use of hyperlinks." WCMC's Jeremy Harrison adds that "using the World Wide Web, it is possible to create an interlocking network of environmental information sources with access from one 'interface' or page, or from many entry points".
The partners believe that this open and non-hierarchical approach to information management provides a richer understanding of how environmental issues interact -- and is the basis for understanding how vicious cycles of conservation problems are created and can be broken by appropriate strategies. This strategy is designed to achieve maximum coverage with whatever resources become available. It is also consistent with ecosystem organization.
| User participation
As well as offering scientific research, Conservation will provide information on relevant international organisations and publications and will provide two-way links to external web-sites. The data will be structured to facilitate user interaction, annotation and feedback for further development of the information. Users will be enabled to discuss topics and contribute new sources of information. Such feedback would be channelled through a range of filters and made available to other online users.
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Although the objectives of this project are complex, the approach is pragmatic, based as it is on working with data as they become available using technology within a tight budget. This is possible because the project team is at the forefront of technology use, despite such constraints as the developmental timescales of software tools - for example, in their requirement for a multilingual tool for data retrieval and online translation. User interfaces will be made available in several European languages. They will be supported by a multi-lingual thesaurus permitting users to make foreign language query searches or to use non-English subject categories to access data only available in English.
Innovative Marketing
Project plans include a strategy for marketing Conservation. It will be launched at a major international conservation event. It will also develop progressively as modules over the World Wide Web. Ken Friedman of the Norwegian School of Management notes "we don’t want to over-define Conservation too closely at this stage. It is an evolutionary process out of which specific products and services will develop. We will make this project increasingly more valuable through response to user feedback as a basis for improvements. It’s a whole new approach to the interactive development of information products."
