RESEARCHERS are an unworldly lot. This can be charming until they are asked
to advise governments on whether powerful industries can do this or that without
messing something up. Their first instinct is to e-mail colleagues, compare
notes and present a conclusion. And that, they think, should be that.
But it isn鈥檛. Not when some company will lose money because of their advice.
Chemicals companies exploited small differences in scientific opinion to block
controls on CFCs until ozone scientists pooled their data and reached an open
consensus which the companies could not discredit. The result was the Montreal
Protocol.
The conservation community must now learn this lesson. 杏吧原创s who tell
the World Conservation Union (IUCN) what鈥檚 endangered and what isn鈥檛 are not
being given the time or resources they need to give advice, safe from the low
blows of commercial interest. And low blows, it seems, can be delivered even
through the pages of the august journal Nature.
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Earlier this month, Nicholas Mrosovsky, a zoologist from the University of
Toronto, wrote in Nature (vol 389, p 436) a piece attacking the
scientists who classified the hawksbill sea turtle for the IUCN as 鈥渃ritically
endangered鈥�. He says that the group kept secret the data behind that decision
and a similar one for the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES). He implies that the suppressed data might be questionable
(This Week, 4 October, p 5). Strong stuff.
Except it wasn鈥檛 quite like that. The IUCN used to put creatures on its Red
List of threatened species simply on the say-so of volunteer scientists. Last
year it introduced objective definitions of 鈥渆ndangered鈥�, which is good. But the
criteria are applied by the same informal networks of volunteers. IUCN gave its
sea turtle experts two months to apply the criteria to turtles. The hawksbill
group returned a verdict of 鈥渃ritically endangered鈥�. Mrosovsky, an IUCN turtle
expert but not a member of the hawksbill group, disagreed and asked to see the
data on which this decision was based. He was still waiting for it nine months
later. This is his only substantiated complaint in Nature.
But the scientists say there has been no cover-up. 鈥淲ith only two months to
work, we couldn鈥檛 write up our evidence formally at the time,鈥� says Karen
Bjorndal of the University of Florida, a leading hawksbill expert. 鈥淢ost of us
have jobs to do besides advising the IUCN. We fully intend to send him our data,
and we鈥檙e pulling it together now, but we鈥檝e been very busy鈥濃�攆or instance
organising two international conferences.
The experts were also asked to evaluate a Cuban proposal to CITES, financed
by the Japanese turtle shell industry, to ranch hawksbills and sell wild
hawksbill shells to Japan. The scientists told CITES at a meeting in Harare that
the turtles are too endangered in the Caribbean for this to be permitted. Once
again, Mrosovsky complains, too many of their references were 鈥減ersonal
communication鈥�. But, says Bjorndal, the critical data are all published.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 dispute that ranching, or some sustainable use, might help save the
hawksbill,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e wrote CITES鈥檚 guidelines for turtle ranches. The
Cubans ignored the guidelines.鈥� CITES rejected the proposal.
But in Nature a complaint about the slow delivery of some data has
been inflated, with no firm evidence, into allegations of impropriety, even
fraud. Why? Mrosovsky helped the Cubans with their proposal, in Cuba and in
Harare, and was paid by the International Wildlife Management Consortium, a
consultancy employed by companies that harvest wildlife. Mrosovsky has long
campaigned for turtle farms, and has every right to help Cuba, but perhaps his
article should have mentioned that he is allied with commercial interests that
were harmed by the IUCN scientists he disparages.
He is right, of course, to say that the data behind the assessments should be
easily available. Bjorndal agrees. This is the take-home lesson.
People who profit from selling CFCs or carving trinkets from the shells of
endangered turtles will attack scientists who tell them they shouldn鈥檛, unless
the scientists can defend themselves with unassailable data. This is especially
true given the quasi-religious fervour of the wildlife harvesting industries.
The IUCN must make it possible for scientists to advise, properly protected from
the sometimes covert slings and arrows of commercial interest.