A comprehensive online biodiversity data repository and clearinghouse is our next big challenge

Let’s face it folks. The GMSL’s former website was a nightmare of non-optimized, outdated gunk. Happily for us, the EU provided us with some much needed funds to get our online presence in order and support the biodiversity initiative. Of course we didn’t have enough to hire copywriters and visual artists and all of that was on us which meant additional work and additional time because when resources are limited, heh… that’s what happens. It took us some time to get this done but its finally arrived. A few snags and snafus with material and layouts pertaining to the project itself were sorted out with ACTED giving us that vital feedback we needed. One of the key additions to online project exposition here is that we have included a project blog for each project so that the story of the project can be seen in one single location. We feel this will give a better sense of the effort, the challenges, the wins and losses, madness and frustration of working for the people of the country. Definitely it would be a vast improvement on the careful, tailored, sweetened “project reports” that all of us are so familiar with and which all of us know means absolutely zip.

Another addition is the resources section where we plan to upload as much open source science, IK and education material as we possibly can. Its going to be a slow and arduous task to populate that section but we feel that it is vitally important because data and information hoarding for personal profit has been the demon that brought the industrial world to its collective knees. We believe that a nation informed is a nation empowered and if we acquire something with cost it should be given to the people for free.

The only missing component from the original design was the biodiversity clearinghouse. Speaking to the various stakeholders, we got the distinct view that they would all prefer such an effort to be in the hands of the Sri Lanka Biodiversity Secretariat. So we spoke to them and they were very pleased to have something like this sorted out for them because we really don’t have even a proper repository let alone a clearinghouse. What we plan therefore is to create the repository first and the clearinghouse next. While the initial design and engines were created for a GMSL based initiative, the need escalated into a requirement to design a full fledged strategic mechanism with all the bells and whistles some of which ring via citizen science while others sound across mainstream science.

A challenge to say the least given the various vested interests and bulldog habits of many hundreds of decent folks.

Phew! What a mess. We need to get cracking on the field because the seasons wait for no man and no health crisis. However, as men and women, we are very well aware of the dangers that face our teams and those who come they into contact with on the ground. The situation that exists these days is similar to those that existed during the war. If we had been tasked with carrying out agricultural activities with a civilian population on the FDLs around Kilinochchi during early 2009 we and those we plan to work with would not have been in any greater danger than we are facing now. The only difference is that during a conventional battle, all life threats on all sides are seen and identified and at the very least, a few bullets could be dodged. Not in this case. The killer is known but not only is it unseen but it exists in a cloud akin to a swarm of locusts around the nation. Not only won’t we know who attacked us, we won’t know where or whence we caught that viral bullet. Could we put the communities we work with in danger when our work is defined by the “do no harm” principle? No and not only “no” but we never imagined that the do no harm principle may need to be applied in this context. Yes, workarounds can be sort but most would be suboptimal because agricultural practices require everyone to literally get their hands muddied. Not easy. While we live with hope of an easing of the situation, we shall act  at all times with pragmatism as our norm, working always within a red light culture based on Murphy’s Law and not a green light culture that go into battle with a cavalier and uncharted attitude only to grin inanely like a bunch of buffoons when things fail and fall.

This is stretching both our resources and our patience to the limit. AND beyond. The pandemic has enforced us into yet another lockdown – not the government – going by the people gaily tramping the streets oblivious to very real dangers. The Greens cannot take these issues lightly nor can we rightly ask our field staff to get on with work despite the ever increasing urgency to get the initial community touches done and the TOTs trained. We created a great action plan only to realize that given the situation in the country, attempting to execute it would be tantamount to murder even if we adhere to every pandemic related rule to the letter. It is that bad. So we decided to rethink the thinking. Its taking a bit more time but to do our best to minimize dangers, we will require protocols way beyond what the government enforces. We will also have to reconfigure practical training in a virtual environment and in agriculture that is a tall tall order. The lack of connectivity among the communities only compounds and already complex action problem. It is tough. Try as we might, there is no version of this where the communities, ourselves, our donors can together come  out on top. Well that’s not strictly true. Somewhere, out there, lurks a solution. Maybe. But we cannot see it. Not yet anyway. Sophie? Meet COLIBRI. uuuuuuuuuuurgh!

Our field team needs to be saluted. After the Head Office team managed to get to the Field Office and talk to the teams, they went in, extracting all of the data that was missing for the final IR. We are now in the process of unpacking this and hopefully should have it all sorted out within the week. Congrats to Douglas and the field officers under Amal.

This is a positive of the enforced stay-in. We have the report out finally about 1 month past schedule. COVID did its thing but more than that, I was as sick as a dried out biscuit. Oh well. Loss of productivity is to be expected when people are as old as I am and as debilitated as I feel :(. We still have a few key areas at the grassroots level that have not been covered but we can certainly determine what we want to do, where we want to do it and who we want to do it with. We found that there may not be too much upstrea-downstream movement of toxins and other pollutants because of slow flow rates downstream so pretty much everything thrown on the ground stays in the general vicinity. In many ways a good thing. We identified the misery of the human-wildlife conflict and the madness of the action ecosystem conflict which seems more dangerous than the actual conflict itself. Well, no wonder that most efforts of the do-good-brigade have come to naught. We can always say “we told you so” but what’s the point? Just as much as people don’t listen to sense when it comes to COVID, they don’t listen to sense when it comes to environment either. No! We have to try to get everyone on the same page regardless of how madly they all try to stay on their own pages. How rational they find the crackpot logic of “its my way or the highway”. We also noticed that there was as much land that had gone fallow as there was under cultivation and that this was the end result of protectionism and the disenfranchisement of ICLCs from their own terrains and lands. We have much to do and the IR will definitely help by giving us the evidence we require.