All but one of the Secretariats of the eight selected Conventions expressed interest in obtaining terrestrial observation data through GTOS. Details of the data needs for each Convention, as far as could be determined, are given individually under each Convention.
The exception, the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, felt that many of its developing country Parties would consider the systematic collection of national environmental and renewable natural resource data too politically sensitive an issue for the Convention to take up at this stage. The Secretariat felt, however, that this attitude could well change in the long term future as more and more developing country Parties transformed themselves into newly industrialised states.
Another Convention Secretariat, that of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, had some data needs that were very much more specialised than those of the other Conventions that were consulted. These specialised data are more fully outlined in the section on the Basel Convention but essentially there is a need to monitor the various toxic substances and chemicals that might find their way into the atmosphere, ground water, and food production systems from hazardous waste disposal sites such as land-fills and incinerators. If GTOS is to be involved in provision of these specialised data it would entail designing a subprogramme of GTOS specifically for the Basel Convention. However, the Basel Convention also needs general geographical and habitat data for the zones in and around areas where land-fill and incineration sites are located. These latter data types are identical to those that are needed for most of the other Conventions. A special problem facing the Secretariat and the Parties of the Basel Convention is to locate illegal land-fill sites. The Secretariat wondered, therefore, whether appropriately scaled spatially referenced geographical and habitat data supplied through GTOS could be used to identify potential areas in which illegal land-fill sites might be placed in the future.
The remaining six Conventions form a cluster whose interests and data needs overlap. In most cases observational data are required primarily for improved practical management of the sites, including their conservation.
The data needs of the seven Conventions, as seen by their Secretariats, fall into six broad groups:
General site specific habitat data, including land-cover, land-use, ecological structure, and species composition. Data required are often detailed, and can include biophysical data for studies of environmental and ecological processes.
General habitat data, as above, but for the zones in which Convention sites occur; includes extensive socio-economic data categories. Data are usually needed at broader scales than those for the Convention sites.
Near surface weather data to establish diurnal, seasonal, and long term trends and patterns. The observation system should be suitable for use at both high and low latitudes and high and low altitudes.
Data types not yet routinely incorporated into most broad observational programmes, e.g. crustal stress and tectonic movements; biological diversity assessments; population status and trends of particular species of plants and animals.
Specific observations peculiar to individual Convention objectives e.g. seasonal weather front and pressure system data for use by the Convention on Migratory Species; measurements of specified toxic substances and chemicals for use by the Basel Convention.
New fields for specialised observational programmes e.g. marine mammals, especially of the open oceans; coral reefs; intertidal coastal areas.
The spatially referenced data include a full range of land-cover and land-use information that would allow the Secretariats and the Parties to build up a picture of the large zone in which their particular sites are located. This information would allow them to develop effective, realistic management strategies and plans based on scientific knowledge of the environmental, ecological and developmental pressures that these areas and their contained sites are experiencing. The data required in this format are given in the sections on the individual Conventions.
Some Secretariats recognised the benefits to be gained from detailed studies of biophysical processes relevant to the ecology of each site or to its immediate vicinity, and would encourage GTOS to be able to supply data from such studies to those who can use them. Several of the Conventions are moving towards the development and testing of environmental, ecological and management models for which biophysical process data are important. These models would help to predict likely changes in ecosystems in response to environmental, ecological and human pressures and so would allow more practical, scientifically based management policies and plans to be formulated.
Without exception all the Secretariats in this group said that they (and by inference, their Parties) wanted to obtain through GTOS observational data that allowed them to note and measure habitat changes over time in order to show responses to changing conditions (including global change). The methods used by GTOS should allow distinctions to be made between changes arising from seasonality, short term variability, and long term trends. GTOS should, therefore, wherever possible use methods of data gathering and analysis that facilitate comparison between times at the same site and between sites where appropriate. A flexible approach to data collection, analysis, and management would allow the use of several approved harmonised methods that would result in data of acceptable predetermined levels of accuracy and precision.
Many sites often relate to more than one Convention. For example, some specific wetlands are of concern to the World Heritage Convention, the Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on Migratory Species and possibly CITES. It is important, therefore, that GTOS should use harmonised data acquisition methods at all Convention related sites so that the same data types are passed to the different Conventions in the same formats thus encouraging the Conventions to work more closely together and facilitating comparisons between their various sites to the benefit of them all.
As there is so much overlap among these Conventions several Secretariats suggested that a minimum core set of carefully chosen sensitive variables should be developed by GTOS to be gathered at each site covered by any of the Conventions. The use of such a cross-Convention set of common variables would greatly aid in ensuring that information, data and predictive models could be shared usefully among the Conventions. The majority of other data gathered at each site would then relate specifically to the individual convention concerned.
Quality assurance procedures and quality control practices within GTOS are major concerns to all the Convention Secretariats. Can they and their Parties believe the data that are reported through GTOS? These concerns also include the need for GTOS to adopt harmonised methods for the measurement of variables, and to use accepted common definitions for the classification of some of them (e.g. soils, vegetation, taxa). The latter is particularly important for Conventions whose technical experts have already agreed on workable definitions or classifications for some variables; would these be at variance with those to be used by GTOS? The Convention on Wetlands, for example, already has an approved global classification of wetlands that rests in part on vegetation. Would GTOS use this classification in providing land-cover and habitat data to the Convention Secretariat? If not, would it be able to put its own land-cover and habitat data classes in terms of the wetlands classification that the Convention is now obliged to use?
The validity of extrapolating or otherwise applying data from long term GTOS study sites to those sites designated under the Conventions is another concern expressed by several Secretariats. This concern applies to both the general geographical and habitat data, and, in particular, to data on bio-physical processes. As there will be relatively few GTOS long term study locations they will often be at considerable distances from the Convention sites. The feeling of some Secretariats is, therefore, that data from these distant localities will not always be sufficiently relevant to the Convention sites.
Two potentially useful sectors were identified by several Secretariats as posing specific data gathering problems: tectonic earth movements and their consequent dangers; and the assessment and monitoring of biological diversity.
Several Secretariats said that it was important to their Conventions that they should have a better understanding of the risks of future earth movements to their areas of interest. Sites were often at risk from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, land-slides, mudslides and similar phenomena. Knowledge of the likelihood and possible consequences of such happenings would be of great help in developing practical management plans. Thus an appropriate observational programme within GTOS for crustal stress, and tectonic movements and their consequences would be of practical use to several Conventions.
There was a growing interest in being able to inventory the biological diversity of sites covered by the Conventions and then to subsequently monitor changes in this diversity in the long term. The methods to carry out such inventories are poorly understood and there are few trained staff, especially in developing countries, capable of undertaking them. If such inventories could be arranged through GTOS as part of its observation programme it would be welcomed.
Several Secretariats said that they lacked proper facilities to manage, analyse and interpret the data that are supplied to them by their Convention Parties. Indeed, the Basel Convention identified this as its most important single information and data need. Several others said that they would welcome advice from GTOS on the data management aspects of their work programmes. They asked that GTOS consider providing this advice both to them and to their parties. Essentially what is being requested is help to design a common data management programme that the Convention Secretariats and their Parties could all use. It was recognised by the Secretariats that it would be of benefit if the same data management systems were used by all seven of these Conventions since it would greatly increase the value and practicality of the information generated by them.
Similarly, all seven Secretariats recognise the importance of collecting land-cover, land-use and weather data in a spatially referenced manner and expressing these in the form of appropriately scaled spatially referenced maps. Such maps can be used easily by both management and scientific field staff for practical work, make excellent tools for training, and are a great help in public relations exercises to promote awareness of the purposes and work of the Conventions. The Secretariats have no way of directly undertaking this type of geographical information system work so that it would have to be done with donor funding on a contract basis through national Geographical Information System (GIS) facilities or outside GIS specialists (e.g. GRID, WCMC). This was recognised by most Secretariats, but it was felt that such arrangements could perhaps be best done under the auspices of GTOS.
Some Secretariats reported that their Conventions had been asked to produce global assessments of the state and trends of some natural resources, of concern to their Convention. Thus the Convention on Wetlands is to produce a global assessment of wetlands, the Convention to Combat Desertification is to produce a global assessment of desertification, and the Convention on Biological Diversity is responsible for assessments of selected taxa and habitats. All hope that data from GTOS will help in these exercises; some Secretariats went so far as to suggest that GTOS could take an active role in the assessment process.
There is thus considerable interest in GTOS and its products among the Secretariats of the Conventions contacted. Most see a real need for the kinds of information that could be provided through GTOS and think that it could greatly assist Convention Parties in meeting their obligations under the terms of the Conventions, particularly those developing countries that have as yet inadequately developed technical capabilities and still have a shortage of national technical staff. It is not yet clear how an operational GTOS would actually function and it now becomes a pressing matter to spell this out in a practical manner that can be readily understood by potential users of GTOS, such as the Convention Secretariats. Hopefully, the new version of the GTOS proposal, to be ready by the end of December 1995, will help in this respect. However, until the GTOS Sponsors have decided how they would like to proceed with GTOS it is difficult to move further with the users.
GTOS is unquestionably a good idea whose time has come. Unfortunately, the Sponsors are not yet in a position to put in the money necessary to get GTOS off the ground. Nevertheless, the Sponsors must somehow find enough money to keep a small Interim Secretariat for GTOS functional for the next two years (1996-1997). In that period the Interim Secretariat must use its resources to build an awareness of GTOS and its potential. This can be done by the involvement of both the Interim Secretariat and the Sponsors in a series of contact missions to those with sufficient funds to start GTOS. By using their own staff and consultants in this way Sponsors can draw on financial sources additional to those that they have provided to the Interim Secretariat, so widening the financial base of GTOS. It might be worth considering beginning with visits (followed by proposals) to some of the larger foundations such as Carnegie, Leverhume, Mellon, Rockefeller and Sasakawa to seek once-only start-up grants for an establishment period of GTOS. This is how the Monitoring and Assessment Research Centre (MARC) began its career. These visits should go along with two-way familiarisation visits to potential financially supporting agencies as outlined in the next chapter. These actions will help to enhance the reputation of GTOS and make it more appealing to many potential users, such as the Convention Secretariats, so encouraging them to support GTOS financially.
