As I noted at the start, there are three challenges for us to accept. First of all is the challenge of data integration. We have already heard a great deal about the data problems of biodiversity. But it is a lot more complicated than data. In a very real sense, biodiversity is about people.
Biodiversity is about economic markets, and biodiversity is about global environmental change.
In order to understand biodiversity, you have to have data integration. You have to pull data on all of these together into a single data series or a single database or a single type of data. This is true whether you approach the topic from a scientific, a policy, or a public information perspective. Because the science of biodiversity involves so many fields, the data series themselves have to involve multidisciplinary data. Integrating multidisciplinary data is not an easy task.