The Pimm Group uses Google Trends to track interest in biodiversity in this, the International Year of Biodiversity, and finds itself less than impressed. No change in overall interest since September 2009.
Of course, this evaluation depends on our measure of success. Perhaps it’s too soon to say the IYOB has “failed.” There are many ways to measure success and I have just chosen one that is readily available. Certainly the additional publicity for biodiversity is better than none at all.
Caution duly noted.
I confess, I don’t have the courage to do the same for agricultural biodiversity, in part because there is no one simple term that might capture interest. Myself, I have another metric. It is captured in this paragraph from a Press Release issued yesterday by the Convention on Biological Diversity, which some people seem to think is somehow responsible for the conservation of biodiversity.
Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said the General Assembly meeting [of the United Nations] would provide an important boost for the Convention’s upcoming 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-10) in Nagoya, Japan, next month. COP-10, he said, is expected to adopt a new strategic plan for 2011-2020, including a 2020 biodiversity target and a 2050 biodiversity vision.
Missed your target? Find a new one! Miss that? Show vision! Handbaskets, this way please, your pitchforks await.
Jeremy, thanks for the review of my article for The Pimm Group. As you mentioned, I’m cautious about declaring “failure” of the IYOB. For a variety of reasons. First, this was very limited data, based on Google Search Trends. Many other metrics could be applied, which might tell a different story. Secondly, the year is not yet over! Things could pick up, particularly following the COP meeting. Thirdly, interest might take longer to build than we anticipate. The real payoff might be a year or two from now as more books come out, biodiversity is added to curricula and journalists report more. Finally, declaring failure seems to be a negative contribution when we do badly need positivism. I didn’t want to be the bringer of bad news. But, on the other hand, particularly in light of the results I presented, we really do need to question the motivation, goals, scope and methods of these “big” declarative institutional initiatives.
In your excerpt you suggest that adoption of targets is a viable metric. Certainly that’s a welcome development. But as we have seen, every single country failed to meet its 2010 biodiversity objectives. Simpy adopting new targets does not help meet them later down the road.
You’re right of course. We need global leadership and vision. A world leader to step up to the plate and inspire and motivate some very fundamental changes in the ways humans do business (literally and figuratively) on this planet.
I agree that to measure success through searches on Google can be easily to read and precisely quantify as well. But the lost of biodiversity is really a serious matter that cannot be ignored. It is well known that human activities have serious impact on the whole ecosystem. We should start changes from the top: government, counties, industrial organizations, habitants… We all should have to follow the clear vision: to survive together with the planet Earth.
The Top? Why start there? they’ve been at it for decades and don’t seem to have achieved very much.