"The Conservation Commons: Lessons and Analyses Adapted from other Sectors and Domains"

1. The Conservation Commons:
Lessons and analysis adapted
from other sectors and domains?
Tom Moritz
World Conservation Congress
October, 2008
Barcelona

2. “The field of knowledge is the common
property of all mankind “
Thomas Jefferson 1807

3. Repatriation of biodiversity information through Clearing House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological
Diversity and Global Biodiversity Information Facility; Views and experiences of Peruvian and
Bolivian 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

4. Colin Bibby, 2002
Toward Evidenced-based Conservation

5. “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

6. Source: Voss &
Emmons, AMNH
Bull. No. 230, 1996
(by permission)

7. Tiger trap goes cuckoo
06-07-2006
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)

8. 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

9. Poder Politico y ConocimientoResponsabilidadyPoder
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

10. 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

11. 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 Commons
The Public Domain
Knowledge
Commons

12. • 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

13. 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” ???

14. Reductionists
Current Norms
Expansionists
Maximalists
Intellectual Property Rights
BENEFITS
Differing Interpretations of IPR Regulation
Gloved
Mouse

15. Cultural Change ?

16. Change must occur
on at least 3 levels
• Individual
• Professional / Disciplinary
• Organizational / Institutional

17. Individuals

18. Cost Benefit Calculations of Change
High 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.

19. Incentives for Sharing?
• Ethics and the ethos of conservation
• Personal recognition: priority/ prestige
• Job security (tenure / promotion)
– (Requires professional/disciplinary change)

20. 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).

21. Professional / Disciplinary

22. • 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

23. 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 analyzedcollected 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 accessibilityexist in various twilight states of accessibility,
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 andata are thus disaggregated components of an
incipient network that is only as effective as the individual transactions that put itincipient network that is only as effective as the individual transactions that put it
togethertogether. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. Organizational / Institutional
Change

27. The Social Enterprise Spectrum
Purely 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. "...organic processes have
an historical contingency
that prevents universal
explanation."
Richard Lewontin in The Triple Helix

31. Tom Moritz
Principal
Tom Moritz Consultancy
Los Angeles, California
tom.moritz@gmail.com
++1 310 963 0199