Ethical issues facing future availability of forestry data: a discussion

Summary

The rapid growth of research and data management systems suggests a future where we will be able to manage forest systems with a greater understanding and accuracy than ever before. We are already developing forest management systems well beyond the traditional aspatial and textural formats. However, as data become more accessible, with associated increased resolution (both temporal and spatial), and easier access to various statistical tools, ethical issues that were not previously considered significant in the traditional management of forestry data are now emerging as very important. Data that previously may have been thought of as private or protected can now be easily copied or moved and combined with other data, resulting in new concerns about who uses the data and in what way. In addition, as data mining capabilities are increasingly built into supporting software, issues associated with privacy, accuracy and accessibility are becoming more important. It does not take great imagination to envisage a situation, in the not too distant future, where regulations and legal decisions will dictate certain security safeguards for the data management systems that handle such data. These developments are likely to restrict data availability and, as a consequence, hinder the evolution of forest information management systems. However, there are actions that forest data managers could take to alleviate potential future restrictions of data availability.

Keywords:

• data communication
• resources
• availability
• management
• ethics
• decision making
• models