Ch. 5— Maintaining Biologicai Diversity Onsite • 127 



Coordination of data-collection efforts can re- 

 duce incompatibilities, lessen duplications, and 

 identify gaps in collection. For example, CMC 

 and UNESCO plan to feed information into the 

 GRID system. TNC's regional databank has in- 

 corporated the classification system used by 

 CMC to improve compatibility between the two 

 data systems (33). 



Coordination efforts at the U.S. Federal level 

 have involved formal interagency cooperative 

 agreements. (See OTA Background Paper #2, 

 Assessing Biological Diversity in the United 

 States: Data Considerations, for a description 

 of these Federal interagency efforts to coordi- 

 nate data collection and maintenance.) These 

 efforts have resulted in recommendations and 

 guidelines for standardization of databases. 

 Most agencies would have to invest some per- 

 sonnel and funding to make their databases 

 compatible with those of other agencies, how- 

 ever, which may not occur without specific con- 

 gressional mandates. 



Social and Economic Data 



Human activities are the main cause of the 

 accelerated loss of biological diversity, and suc- 

 cessful implementation of onsite maintenance 

 methods described in this chapter depends on 

 cooperation of people living on and near the 

 land that is affected. Collection and analysis 

 of social and economic data, therefore, are es- 

 sential to understanding the changing patterns 

 of biological diversity and to planning and im- 

 plementing conservation strategies (7). 



The complexity of natural ecosystems rivals 

 the complexity of social and economic proc- 

 esses that affect them. Thus, socioeconomic re- 

 search should be no less rigorous than the bio- 

 logical research. Unfortunately, social and 

 economic data are often the weak link in con- 

 servation planning. 



Demography is a well-established social sci- 

 ence with reliable data sources, theories, and 



methods to describe population patterns. The- 

 ories on how population growth under various 

 circumstances affects biological diversity are 

 lacking, however. 



The status of biological diversity is greatly 

 affected by the supply and demand of raw ma- 

 terials, agricultural commodities, and natural 

 products. Natural-resource economic data and 

 analytical methods have been developed for 

 other fields of resource management, such as 

 forestry, fisheries, and agriculture, but appli- 

 cation of economics to issues of biological 

 diversity has hardly begun. Some biologists and 

 geographers have started to do economic anal- 

 yses, but few professional economists are in- 

 terested in biological diversity. 



Data on technological change, especially in 

 agriculture and pollution-causation and abate- 

 ment, are sometimes assessed as part of the 

 environmental-impact assessment process re- 

 quired when Federal funding is involved in re- 

 source development in the United States. Im- 

 proved methods for such assessment have 

 developed in the years since the National Envi- 

 ronmental Policy Act became law. But meth- 

 ods for technology-impact assessment are sorely 

 lacking for other parts of the world, especially 

 for the tropical regions where diversity is most 

 threatened. 



Social and political processes influencing 

 how biological diversity is perceived and val- 

 ued are probably the least well-understood and, 

 in the long run, the most important factors 

 affecting success of onsite diversity mainte- 

 nance. Geographers, sociologists, anthropolo- 

 gists, historians, and biologists who have ven- 

 tured outside their field of technical expertise 

 have developed important descriptions of so- 

 cial factors affecting diversity maintenance at 

 specific sites. But the analysis needed to de- 

 velop a broader understanding and theories 

 from which to generalize has yet to be un- 

 dertaken. 



