The Conservation Commons:Lessons and analysis adapted

from other sectors and domains?

Tom Moritz

World Conservation Congress

October, 2008 Barcelona

“The field of knowledge is the common property of all mankind “

Thomas Jefferson 1807

Repatriation of biodiversity information through Clearing House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Global Biodiversity Information Facility; Views and experiences of Peruvian andBolivian non-governmental organizations. Ulla Helimo Master’s Thesis University of Turku Department of

Biology 6.10. 2004 p.11. http://enbi.utu.fi/Documents/Ulla%20Helimo%20PRO%20GRADU.pdf [06-06-05]

KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES:

Technology

Colin Bibby, 2002

Toward Evidenced-based Conservation

“In his pioneering sociological work, Emile Durkheim emphasized “social facts,” the real, observable behaviors that should underlie sociological thinking. Knowledge management has inherited that concern for social facts. Rather than build from theory, it looks at what people actually do—the circumstances in which they share knowledge or do not share it; the ways they use, change, or ignore what they learn from others. Those social facts guide (or should guide) the development of knowledge management tools and techniques.”

L. Prusak, Where did knowledge management come from?, IBM Systems Journal Volume 40, Number 4, 2001[ “Knowledge Management”], http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/prusak.html

Source: Voss & Emmons, AMNH Bull. No. 230, 1996

(by permission)

Tiger trap goes cuckoo06-07-2006

A camera-trap operated by a joint Indonesian and British team of scientists surveying for tigers in a former logging concession close to Kerinci Seblat National Park in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, has photographed a Sumatran Ground-cuckoo Carpococcyx viridis, one of Asia’s rarest birds. The endemic ground-cuckoo has only been recorded once previously in the last 90 years, when a bird was trapped in southern Sumatra in 1997. Prior to that, only eight specimen records existed.

http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2006/07/cuckoo.html [June 3, 2007]

Y Dinata (FFI)/M Linkie (DICE)

Rheinardia ocellata, the Crested Argus. Photographed at night by an automatic camera-trap in the Ngoc Linh foothills (Quang Nam Province).

Courtesy AMNH Center for Biodiversity and Conservation

Poder Politico y ConocimientoResponsabilidad y Poder

Políticos

Administradores o Gestores

Analistas-Técnicos

Científicos

Conocimiento (en términos científicos-occidentales)Bajo

Alto

Alto

(Sutton, 1999)

From: Organizaciones que aprenden, paises que aprenden: lecciones y AP en Costa Rica by Andrea Ballestero Directora ELAP

OECD Follow Up Group on Issues of Access to Publicly Funded Research Data. Promoting Access to Public Research Data for Scientific,Economic, and Social Development: Final Report March 2003

THE ROLE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DATA AND INFORMATION IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN PROCEEDINGS OF A SYMPOSIUM Julie M. Esanu and Paul F. Uhlir, Editors Steering Committee on the Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain Office of International Scientific and Technical Information Programs Board on International Scientific Organizations Policy and Global Affairs Division, National Research Council of the National Academies, p. 5

Research CommonsThe Public Domain

Knowledge Commons

• In the past 2 decades there have been pressures exerted toward both to the left (free/ open access) and to the right (fully proprietary) columns of the graph

Julian Birkinshaw and Tony Sheehan, “Managing the Knowledge Life Cycle,” MIT Sloan Management Review, 44 (2) Fall, 2002: 77.

???

Should conservation knowledge be a “commodity” ???

Reductionists

Current Norms

Expansionists

Maximalists

Intellectual Property Rights

BENEFITS

Differing Interpretations of IPR Regulation

Gloved Mouse

Cultural Change ?

Change must occur on at least 3 levels

• Individual

• Professional / Disciplinary

• Organizational / Institutional

Individuals

Cost Benefit Calculations of ChangeHigh Cost

Low Cost

Tangible Personal Benefit

Intangible Societal

Benefit-- Clear, direct benefits

-- Change is easy

-- Communication and information are key

-- Intangible direct benefits

-- Change is easy

-- Ultimate benefit should be stressed

--Convenience is key

Cell C Cell D

Cell BCell A

-- Clear, direct benefits

--Change is difficult

--Balancing communication with a strong support system is key

-- Intangible, indirect benefits

--Change if difficult

-- Try to reposition into “Cell D” : leverage enthusiasm / supply-side persuasion

Adapted from VK Rangan et al. “Do better at doing good,” in in Harvard Business Review on Non-Profits Harvard, Cambridge, 1999, p. 173- ff.

Incentives for Sharing?

• Ethics and the ethos of conservation

• Personal recognition: priority/ prestige

• Job security (tenure / promotion) – (Requires professional/disciplinary change)

Individual’s willingness to share: the Core functions of Scholarly Communication

• “Registration, which allows claims of precedence for a scholarly finding.

• “Certification, which establishes the validity of a registered scholarly claim.

• “Awareness, which allows participants in the scholarly system to remain aware of new claims and findings.

• “Archiving, which preserves the scholarly record over time.

• “Rewarding, which rewards participants for their performance in the communication system based on metrics derived from that system.

Roosendaal, H., Geurts, P in Cooperative Research Information Systems in Physics (Oldenburg, Germany, 1997).

Professional / Disciplinary

• Expectations of sharing vary by discipline • In “big science” (astrophysics / astronomy /

meteorology / oceanography) sharing is expected and contributions to a common fund of knowledge are assumed (See also: GENBANK )

• In “small science” such expectations are weaker

The “small science,” independent investigator approach traditionally has characterized a large area of experimental laboratory sciences, such as chemistry or biomedical research, and field work and studies, such as biodiversity, ecology, microbiology, soil science, and anthropology. The data or samples are collected and analyzed collected and analyzed independentlyindependently, and the resulting data sets from such studies generally are heterogeneous and unstandardizedheterogeneous and unstandardized, with few of the individual data holdings deposited in public data repositories or openly shared. The data exist in various twilight states of exist in various twilight states of accessibilityaccessibility, depending on the extent to which they are published, discussed in papers but not revealed, or just known about because of reputation or ongoing work, but kept under absolute or relative secrecy. The data are thus disaggregated components of an data are thus disaggregated components of an incipient network that is only as effective as the individual incipient network that is only as effective as the individual transactions that put it togethertransactions that put it together. Openness and sharing are not ignored, but they are not necessarily dominant either. These values must compete with strategic considerations of self-interest, secrecy, and the logic of mutually beneficial exchange, particularly in areas of research in which commercial applications are more readily identifiable.

The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain: Proceedings of a Symposium. Julie M. Esanu and Paul F. Uhlir, Eds.

Steering Committee on the Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain Office of International

Scientific and Technical Information Programs Board on International Scientific Organizations Policy and Global Affairs Division,

National Research Council of the [US] National Academies, p. 8

Small Science: Data Deposit and Access

• Data are typically held in many formats • Discovery of data is very weakly supported• Access to and use of data are highly variable• However great progress has been made

respecting museum specimen data in the past 20 years [SEE: GBIF and many allied projects]

• Some progress has been made respecting observational and other data

• Ecological and conservation field data remain highly problematic

Data Citation and Access?

-- Even common standards for data citation and access are lacking

See for example:

M. Altman and G. King “A Proposed Standard for the Scholarly Citation of Quantitative Data” D-Lib Magazine March/April 2007 Vol.13:3/4

Organizational / Institutional Change

The Social Enterprise SpectrumPurely Philanthropic Purely Commercial

Motives

Methods

Goals

Appeal to

Goodwill

Mission Driven

Social Value

Mixed Motives

Mission and Market Driven

Social and Economic Value

Appeal to Self Interest

Market Driven

Economic Value

JG Dees, “Enterprising Non-profits" in Harvard Business Review on Non-Profits Harvard, Cambridge, 1999, p.147

The Social Enterprise Spectrum: Key Stakeholders

Purely Philanthropic Purely Commercial

JG Dees, “Enterprising Non-profits" in Harvard Business Review on Non-Profits Harvard, Cambridge, 1999, p.147

Beneficiaries Pay Nothing Mixed Market rate prices

Capital Donations and Grants Mixed Market Rate Capital (TAXES?)

Workforce Nonprofit Prof’s /Volunteers Mixed Market Rate Compensations

Suppliers In-Kind Donations Mixed /Special Discounts Market Rate Prices

Disintermediation of the traditional value chain: “…a clash of business models.” -- Kevin Kelly

“But a new regime of digital technology has now disrupted all business models based on mass-produced copies, including individual livelihoods of artists. The contours of the electronic economy are still emerging, but while they do, the wealth derived from the old business model is being spent to try to protect that old model, through legislation and enforcement.

Laws based on the mass-produced copy artifact are being taken to the extreme, while desperate measures to outlaw new technologies in the marketplace "for our protection" are introduced in misguided righteousness. (This is to be expected. The fact is, entire industries and the fortunes of those working in them are threatened with demise. Newspapers and magazines, Hollywood, record labels, broadcasters and many hard-working and wonderful creative people in those fields have to change the model of how they earn money. Not all will make it.)”

Kevin Kelly, “Scan This Book!” NYT. Published: May 14, 2006

"...organic processes have an historical contingency

that prevents universal explanation."

Richard Lewontin in The Triple Helix

Tom MoritzPrincipal

Tom Moritz ConsultancyLos Angeles, Californiatom.moritz@gmail.com

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