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· 10TH OF MAY, THE YEAR 2007

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE

Today, a consortium of natural history institutions from around the world announced plans to create the Encyclopedia of Life, “an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world.” Essentially, they want to make a field guide to every species known on the planet. Normally I would respond to these kinds of pie-in-the-sky ambitions with serious doubt, but a) they have a subverted my reason with a sexy, professionally designed intro video, b) “they” are some of the world’s pre-eminent natural history organizations, and c) they have $12,000,000. Also, this is the kind of thing I’ve been wanting forever and have been seriously dreaming about for the last 3 years. Some are criticising the effort as unrealistic and largely vaporware (which it is, right now), but I don’t think these are valid critiques. No, taxonomists and systematists can’t agree on anything, yes it will cost more than $12M, yes the website descriptions make vague and dubious references to “mashups” and user-generated content, but hey, this is only an announcement. Of course making something like this will be hard. If anyone is allowed to add content, of course there will be validation issues. Knowledgeable experts will be tough to wrangle. But by the looks of it, the people behind this project are not stupid. They know these things. They have resources and influence, and anyone remotely associated with biodiversity informatics should be signing up to join in.

I’ve been working on a similar project at the iSchool this semester called iNaturalist (check out our development site if you want to see what we’ve been up to). iNaturalist will be a community for naturalists, a place to get information about your local biodiversity, to manage and share your own observations of things in nature, and to meet other naturalists. We define a “naturalist” as anyone with an interest in the natural world, not just hardcore birders, leaders of nature walks, or bionerds like myself. I’ve been thinking about this idea for some time, and it’s been wonderful to finally work with people who agree that it’s important and are willing to help make it a reality. That’s why watching the EOL video this morning was enormously validating: other people think this is a good idea too! Important people, all over the world! Maybe a fully-formed and functional iNaturalist could even work with EOL, either through direct collaboration or exploiting each others APIs.

Watching the EOL video also reemphasized one of the reasons I think iNaturalist is important, because it’s a major difference between the two projects: we must engage nature if we are to value it enough to conserve it. Now with concision: use it or lose it. If I am an environmentalist, I am a utilitarian one. While I love museums and I think they’re important, and while I adore nature centers, guided hikes, and field guides, I truly believe that a deep, informed, lasting understanding of our connection with nature can only be achieved through direct engagement with nature, not these sorts of mitigated experiences. This does not mean going for a run in the park and appreciating a sunny day (wonderful in their own right, of course), nor does it mean touching animals at a petting zoo. I am even tempted to say it doesn’t mean going on a guided bird walk with the local chapter of the Audubon Society. What I mean by engagement is this: seeing a bug on a leaf, stopping to watch what it does, and wondering. What is it? What is it doing? I mean grabbing your fishing gear, thinking about the weather, choosing your lure for a particular fish, catching that fish, and using it in an old family recipe. Engagement is personal, direct, and literal. It’s not for everyone, but I think if more people can have such genuine experiences, nature will seem less like a pretty picture to them and more like an ineffably beautiful necessity.

iNaturalist supports that goal by facilitating people who already have this approach to nature, like bird-watchers and fishermen. By letting them manage and share observations, they’ll not only get a greater understanding of their own data, but will be able to relate it to the data of others. I think the more these data are shared online, the more people will use them to engage in the physical world. Maybe you didn’t even know a cicada really looks like, or what the shed skin of its larva looks like. Seeing someone else’s observations of such things on iNaturalist might make you more away of those things, more inclined to stop when you hear that buzzing cicada and try to seek it out. EOL, if it succeeds, will be a magnificent edifice, an achievement upon which the world can rely, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to serve the purposes of hand-written notes in the bird log or gas-pump banter and gossip. That, I hope, is where iNaturalist will be able to help.