[NHCOLL-L:3575] Re: NPS specimen issue and NSCA

[Doug Yanega]

>Although many in our community express concern with the NPS policy, 
>we have few clear examples of how the policy is hindering research. 
>It would be helpful to future NSC Alliance deliberations on this 
>issue if individuals who have experienced problems with the NPS 
>policy could send us concrete examples.

At the risk of starting a rash of "Me, too!" messages, I think I can 
express the most fundamental way in which existing policy hinders 
research for many (if not most) of us on this list:

WE SIMPLY AVOID DOING RESEARCH ON NPS LAND.

On an avoidance scale of "1" being an ice-cold swimming pool and "10" 
being molten lead poured into one's eye sockets, I'd rate it a "9". 
But, seriously, this helps no one. We lose, because we lose access to 
these lands, which contain many of the jewels of our nation's 
biodiversity, and the NPS loses, because the number of people doing 
research on their land and *documenting* this biodiversity is a TINY 
fraction of what it could, and should, be.

I suspect that for every actual "concrete example", there are dozens 
of individuals or institutions who choose to avoid the matter 
altogether - it is, despite its "non-concreteness", a genuine and 
severe hindrance.

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82