Long-term ecological monitoring and institutional memories

Many important ecological management issues can only be addressed by long-term monitoring or through studies carried out over extended periods. But such studies require institutional settings that ensure funding is sustained and that data arising from these studies are securely managed. Recent experience suggests both are difficult to achieve. This is because management agencies and research bodies are periodically restructured, especially in recent years. This has often led to long-term work being terminated. But there is anecdotal evidence that the data collected in at least some of these studies are not always lost. Instead, it can remain stored in the back rooms of agencies or in the personal files of former staff. Such data are clearly at risk; with time fewer people remain aware of the work or of the existence of data that were collected, thereby increasing the likelihood that the information will eventually disappear. This seems a waste. Securing funds for any long-term ecological study is always likely to be difficult, and many of these previous long-term studies are likely to be relevant to some of our present management problems. One approach to taking advantage of these earlier studies would be to ask scientific and professional associations to survey their older members to identify relevant previous investigations. But any re-establishment of former studies will require the creation of new institutional arrangements, more robust institutional memories and sufficient funds that are able to sustain any resurrected investigations into the future