Rick, yes I'm glad the decision was reached to add that "blurring feature".
> Even with plant locations accurate to the level of counties, the
> resulting distributions would be quite useful to researchers striving to
> see the "big picture", and looking desperately for hard data to present
> to both the public and to lawmakers.
I'm not aware of who these researchers are? What kind of project are they
working on? Are they with academia or government? What is the "big picture"
they are trying to grasp? This seems very relevant to the ICPS discussion!
> What we need to do is find a workable compromise that will allow the
> world to see what the global situation is, how it is changing, and allow
> informed decisions to be made - without creating a situation that could
> be unreasonably exploited.
I can see that would be very helpful--if the map was plotting locations for
endagered habitat or habitat types (ie. bog locations, wetland sites,
undeveloped costal dunes, serpentine soils). But why map CP? They are
not even a natural group (they are not monophyletic, they are not
representitive of any particular habitat type, all species are not
threatened).
> Here again, we come back to the issue of trust. No positive progress
> can ever be made without a reasonable balance of trust.
I am not entirely convinced by this call for trust, since it seems
to be a one-way request (ie. hobbyists asking to be entrusted with
locality data). What do the hobbyists offer to conservationists?
(Please don't say the hobbyists can show them how to grow the plants!
Nor that hobby collections are a conservation reservoir.) I suppose
that plant hobyists could be weaned into becoming conservationists, or
at least conservation-minded. In fact, I bet that many conservationists
DO start that way! But I don't see how spreading a lot of habitat data
among the public can accelerate the process. This is probably worth
more discussion in another thread...
Michael Chamberland