Biological Survey

* The Times’ Oct. 2 article on the National Biological Survey (NBS) raised several important issues about what the survey should be. These were addressed by a new National Research Council report released Oct. 5. Written at the request of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, our report includes the following points:

We already have a great deal of scientific information about our country’s biological assets, and there is a lot of relevant work now going on in many institutions in all 50 states. Two things are missing: an effective way of coordinating the information and research to make them most useful, and a way to fill critical scientific gaps.

To that end the report recommends a national partnership, brought together by the NBS, across all levels of government and between the public and private sectors. States and local governments, with their major resource management and land-use responsibilities, should be full members of this partnership. California, with its great richness of biological resources, could benefit greatly from participating.

Wise management of our nation’s biological resources requires a continuing assessment of the state of those resources, the ways they are changing and the causes of those changes. To do this, we need research ranging from carefully chosen taxonomic inventories to intensive studies of ecological processes. We do not need, nor can we feasibly perform, a complete count of every single plant and animal in the United States.

The benefits of a biological survey go well beyond the protection of endangered species. For example, they include facilitating the sustainable use of plants and animals and deriving economic benefits from them.

The NBS can fulfill its mission only if it is a scientific agency, not a regulatory one. Through the partnership we propose, it will provide federal, state and local organizations and private citizens with the information they need to help us avoid costly environmental confrontations and use our nation’s vast biological resources wisely.

PETER H. RAVEN

Committee Chair

ERIC A. FISCHER

Project Director

National Research Council, Washington