The role of the parataxonomists, curators and international taxonomists in Costa Rica’s National Biodiversity Inventory.

Abstract

INBio has accepted the responsibility of undertaking a national inventory of Costa Rica's biodiversity in a ten-year period beginning in approximately 1993. This is being done in strong collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mines (MIRENEM) in general and the Conservation Area administrations specifically, with growing involvement by Costa Rica’s two major universities. The intent of this inventory is to render the species and information in Costa Rica’s biodiverse wildlands accessible and usable by society for intellectual and commercial purposes. Costa Rica’s conserved wildlands thus have the chance to become directly productive and a significant contribution to both their own costs of upkeep and to GNP. Conservation per se thus becomes a highly desired by-product rather than the only goal. Ten years was chosen as being long enough to do the inventory but short enough to allow the results to become available quick enough to have an impact. If Costa Rica does not have its Conservation Areas - as mentioned elsewhere, about 25% of the national territory as wildlands conserved for their biodiversity - recognized as a firmly productive sector within 1-2 decades, these wildlands have little or no chance of withstanding the environmental onslaught from the pending major increase of the population during over the next ten years, the pending national social reorganizations, the pending environmental contamination/changes from industrialization and thorough agriculturization, and the acquisitional drive of clever individuals. If Costa Rica's biodiversity is to survive, it must be made usable for both intellectual and economic gain of sufficient magnitude that Costa Rica’s society will aggressively conserve it into perpetuity.