Proteus 2012 is a new five year partnership building on the successes of Proteus between 2004 and 2007. It recognises that more needs to be done to deliver comprehensive protected area information, and that the task of joining different biodiversity datasets has barely started. The goal by 2012 is for decision-makers in industry and elsewhere to have access to the best possible data and information on the location and distribution of biodiversity of the highest value, as determined by globally important priority setting frameworks.

Proteus 2012 has three major objectives.

The first is to populate the new WDPA with the best available information and this will entail inter alia significant rebuilding of the IUCN expert network within the World Commission on Protected Areas, and a gradual move towards a decentralized and distributed approach to data capture, management and reporting. It will also involve a sharpened focus on data quality and maintenance processes. The second is to work with leading biodiversity organisations to combine other key biodiversity datasets with the WDPA, integrating them or making them fully interoperable, so that decision-makers have the best available data on irreplaceable, but unprotected biodiversity and prospective protected areas. The third is to develop an online resource on critical coastal and inshore marine ecosystems and pioneer the use of ‘citizen science’ (using ‘Wiki-style’ web tools) for creating a continually updated online resource.

Meeting these objectives will require the development of new partnerships and data-sharing agreements in line with the principles of the Conservation Commons. Success will depend on innovative new relationships with conservation NGOs that can bring important new data and information into the mix. An early example of this is the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) produced by BirdLife International, Conservation International and UNEP-WCMC with IUCN as an observer.

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