Our records collection is not up to scratch

One of my favourite bits of trivia in Irish biogeography has been the apparently special affinity of the woodlouse Androniscus dentiger, already uniquely rosepink among our 28 kinds of woodlice, for derelict Protestant churchyards. There may well be explanations for this - choice of rock for building and gravestones, age and composition of mortar, range of undisturbed lichens and mosses, the observer's own preference for searching for woodlice without feeling watched, and so on. But it did seem worth mentioning, in passing, in the Distribution Atlas of Woodlice in Ireland published by An Foras Forbartha in 1982.

Several such atlases - for butterflies and dragonflies, amphibians and mammals - were compiled by the Irish Biological Records Centre, which AFF set up in 1971 with money from the Carnegie Trust. They were edited by Eanna ni Lamhna, whose huge personal enthusiasm is now so popular on radio. The bulk of the records came in from professional biologists and naturalists, but there were many more from dedicated amateurs and even schoolchildren, screened by a panel of experts. The atlases were pretty basic - spiral-bound, photocopied, no pictures, the species shown by an X in a 10 km square on a map. They were a world apart from the brilliant pages - in every sense - of the Millennium Report on Ire- land's Environment just published by the Environment Protection Agency (and worth every penny of the £15).

The chapter on "Natural Heritage and Biodiversity" is full of splendidly-presented information about key species and habitats. Yet it concludes, simply: "It has not been possible, except in general terms, to assess Ireland's biodiversity. We do not know precisely what it entails. Inadequate data is a serious problem." The Republic, it notes, has no biological records centre, "essential if species diversity is to be properly monitored".

On the long road from An Foras Forbartha, our first conservation research agency, to Duchas, the heritage service, a basic tool of wildlife conservation had been lost. There have been plenty of surveys carried out or commissioned by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, but mostly on an ad hoc basis as species came under threat.

When Ireland ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1996, put forward at the Earth Summit in Rio four years earlier, it had to produce a national report, and then a plan for its implementation. The report, when it appeared last year, was able to offer an "indicative list of inventories, surveys or partial surveys of the national resource of rare or threatened habitats, plants and animals" - but no Irish biological records centre that tied them together on computer. Some of the surveys have been of species needing protection under the EU Habitats Directive. What did we know, for example, about the status and distribution of our three kinds of lamprey (sea, river and brook), already in sharp decline in many European rivers? Almost nothing, was the answer.

An urgent check around fishermen and fishery biologists found them still widespread, but seemingly declining, their spawning grounds in the southern rivers threatened by pollution, flash floods and river barriers blocking the lampreys' migrations.

It was enough information to suggest where some Special Areas of Conservation might help. But the authors of the study stressed that it reflected the amount of biological survey work being carried out in the rivers, and the interest of the surveyors "rather than the actual distribution of lampreys."

Whether it's pine martens or bats, peregrine falcons or choughs, river pearl mussels or mink, there are many thorough studies and baseline surveys, often with monitoring programmes kept up by Duchas's conservation wardens. Bird watchers, organised through BirdWatch Ireland, have made a great input to surveys of wetland species and the breeding birds of the countryside.

The records of keen amateurs and dedicated naturalists have always been vital to the biogeography of nature - tracking where species live and why. In the original An Foras Forbartha atlas of Ireland's dragonflies, most of the data came from one person - Cynthia Longfield, who spend a lifetime studying them.

What has happened to her records? They have been taken north and gratefully absorbed into the databases of CEDAR, the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording founded by the Ulster Museum in Belfast in 1995. And it is the museum, with support from Duchas, that is running Dragonfly Ireland, the four-years island-wide survey of distribution.

CeDAR can boast of more than a million species records, and a network of local recorders - in statutory agencies, wildlife and conservation NGOs, local societies or just working as individuals. Their records are computerised - CeDAR will even do it for them - and maintained in compatible databases.

Some of the records are "sensitive" - exact breeding locations of rare birds, for example - and are kept confidential. But CeDAR sees its mission as offering to the people of the North the knowledge of their local natural history. It supports its recorders as a group with their own meetings and a newsletter, and is now involving an even wider public in recording their local mammals.

The disseminating spirit of CeDAR is just what was hoped for in Dublin 25 years ago, in the outward-looking era of young professionals such as Eanna ni Lamhna. It will be evident again in next month's Dublin workshop of environmental scientists, "Biodiversity - a natural national resource". There will be news of Duchas's new Biodiversity Plan - and a few searching questions in return.

Meanwhile, visit CeDAR and the dragonfly website at www.ulstermuseum.org.uk/cedar.

"Biodiversity - a natural national resource" is organised by the Environmental Sciences Association of Ireland: Geological Survey and will be held at Beggars Bush on November 10th and 11th. Contact Dr Susan Iremonger, email s.iremonger@esatclear.ie