268 • Technologies To Maintain Biological Diversity 



of specific policy recommendations per- 

 taining to conservation and development 

 plans (10). 



Several components of lUCN are particularly 

 relevant to international conservation efforts. 

 These include the three centers that form part 

 of the lUCN network— the Conservation for De- 

 velopment Center (Gland, Svifitzerland), the 

 Conservation Monitoring Center (Cambridge, 

 England), and the Environmental Law Center 

 (Bonn, West Germany). Central to lUCN prom- 

 inence and legitimacy in international conser- 

 vation are its six commissions of experts on 

 threatened species, protected areas, ecology, 

 environmental planning, environmental policy, 

 law and administration, and environmental 

 education. 



The Conservation for Development Center 

 has emerged as one of lUCN's most successful 

 components. In particular, its role in assisting 

 countries in the development of national con- 

 servation strategies has received growing sup- 

 port. The growth in the program reflects not 

 only the importance of integrating conserva- 

 tion and development interests but lUCN's 

 growing commitment to following this ap- 

 proach. 



The Environmental Law Center has been in- 

 dexing national and international environmental 

 legislation since the early 1960s. Some 20,000 

 titles are now part of the center's Environ- 

 mental Law Information System. The center 

 has recently developed a species law index that 

 codes protected species of wild fauna to the cor- 

 responding national legislation. This index is 

 computerized, allowing manipulation by spe- 

 cies, region, or country, and it is becoming a 

 valuable databank for program and policy plan- 

 ning by governments and NGOs when used in 

 conjunction with scientific information about 

 endangered species, ranges, and protection 

 needs. 



Ecosystem and Species Monitoring 



Information on the status and trends in loss 

 of the world's fauna and flora is a critical ele- 

 ment in defining strategies and priorities. For 

 this reason, a number of international organi- 



zations are involved in the inventory and mon- 

 itoring of biological diversity. Most prominent 

 are the efforts of UNEP, FAO, UNESCO, lUCN, 

 WWF, and ICBP. 



UNEP has an assessment arm, Earthwatch, 

 whose function has been to acquire, monitor, 

 and assess global environmental data. At the 

 heart of Earthwatch is the Global Environment 

 Monitoring System (GEMS), an international 

 effort to collect data needed for environmental 

 management. GEMS current activities are 

 divided into monitoring renewable natural re- 

 sources, climates, health, oceans, and long- 

 range transport of pollutants. These activities 

 are coordinated from the GEMS Programme 

 Activity Center in Nairobi which, like UNEP, 

 works mainly through the intermediary of the 

 specialized agencies of the United Nations — 

 notably FAO, the International Labour Orga- 

 nization, UNESCO, the World Health Organiza- 

 tion, and the World Meteorological Organization 

 —together with appropriate intergovernmen- 

 tal organizations such as lUCN (15). 



To provide access to the databanks, UNEP- 

 GEMS has begun a 2-year pilot project to set 

 up a computerized Global Resource Informa- 

 tion Database (GRID) (74). If successful, GRID 

 may prove to be a powerful tool for interna- 

 tional inventory and monitoring, not only of 

 biological diversity but of other areas too (15). 

 GRID will provide a centralized data-manage- 

 ment service within the U.N. system, designed 

 to convert environmental data into information 

 usable by decisionmakers. The main data-proc- 

 essing facility will be in Geneva, Switzerland, 

 but it will be controlled from UNEP headquar- 

 ters in Nairobi. 



The pilot phase of GRID is to result in an oper- 

 ational system with preliminary results and the 

 training of some personnel. An initial evalua- 

 tion could be expected by the end of UNEP's 

 1986/87 biennium. A full assessment of the sys- 

 tem is unlikely before several more years of 

 operations (74). 



Inventory and monitoring activities at the 

 species level are also undertaken by the Con- 

 servation Monitoring Center (CMC), one of sev- 

 eral centers operating under the auspices of the 



