> I can relate to both sides of this issue. Today though I am thinking this:
> It is very rewarding to observe cp in habitat. But does doing so help or
> harm the plants? At best, viewers will not collect plants. But just to
> visit the site results in plants being trampled, and the sphagnum mat being
> impacted. This impact is minor if visits are few. How can visitation
> benefit the plants?
I thought I'd describe the specific policy for the CP location database,
as it has been currently conceived.
The information will be collected by Toby Marsden and stored in some
ASCII format compatible with Jan's DB. One suggested structure is
something like:
N: +[Dionaea muscipula]
...
LOCUS: {
SUBMITTER: "Joe Foobar <joef@aol.com>"
DATE: "5/19/95"
GRID: 10
CIRCLE: 35:12:33,120:13:24,22
POLY: 35:12:33,120:13:24; 35:19:11,120:11:04; 35:15:33,120:17:24
}
These datablocks would be merged into the WEB version of the CP database.
The SUBMITTER, and DATE fields are obvious. The GRID field is used
to control the sensitivity of the data. When the information is
displayed on the the WEB, it will be in a form of a graphical map. All
coordinates will be "snapped" to a GRID of (in this case) 10 kilometers.
For a poacher to exploit the information, they would need to search
a 100 square km area to find the exact site. For an even rarer species,
the GRID could be set to 50km resolution.
The textual information will NOT be displayed by the WEB browser - Only
an approximate graphical map will be shown.
The CIRCLE entry is a latitude and longitude plus a radius.
The POLY entry is a three or more x,y coordinates, in this case
delimiting a triangular distribution region.
I have gotten from Jan a copy of the CIA World map database, which
is a collection of 5,719,617 vectors showing the political, geographical,
and river boundaries for the entire world. This will form the basis
of the WEB browser map generator program.
------ BEGIN controversial editorializing and personal opinion ---------
Essentially, the "cat is out of the bag".
In this burgeoning "information age", the individual is increasingly
empowered to do this sort of thing for either good or bad intent. The
tools and skills that I have worked decades to master will be *literally*
child's play for the next generation.
What will be our policy when a grade-school child can pull up a
satellite image with 1 cm resolution, and write a trivial program to
search and display every CP site in the world? This sounds farfetched
now, but could possibly be done in 25 years. If we adults can't figure
out how to handle this information, then what will happen when children
have access to it?
Our only hope in this environment is to be honest, forthright, and
diligent about furthering education towards the good. My efforts are to
create an educational resource and a forum for informed dialog. It is
up to everyone else to choose their own path and invent a way to skillfully
deal with this new level of responsibility. We will establish the
precedence for future generations by either our wisdom or our folly.
Secrecy and proprietary efforts are increasingly becoming outdated and
unviable.
------ END controversial editorializing and personal opinion ---------
A similiar project has been launched by the California Native Plant
Society, listing *precise* locations of rare and endangered CA plants
on a floppy-disk database. This information has greatly aided preservation
efforts and allowed people to become pro-active in stopping or delaying
development efforts. The disk is available, for a fee, to members of
the society only.
Best regards,
-- Rick Walker