Aprovechando la biodiversidad: Logros y desafíos del Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad de Costa Rica (INBio)

Abstract

The Costa Rican Biodiversity Institute, INBio, has been in operation for five years and has won international recognition. However, the long contribution of the Costa Rican National Museum and Universities in plant and vertebrate biodiversity must not be forgotten. The basic problems that the INBio must solve are (1) criticisms about access to data and secrecy of its agreement with Merck Farmaceutical, (2) poor relations with other Costa Rican organizations, (3) a malfunctioning database, (4) the unsatisfactory work oC many low scholarly cler ("prataoists"), (5) a lag in taxonomic determination, with only 2% of specimens identified to date,(6) the high maintenance cost of specimens which will prove useless because of collecting errors, and (7) a failure to train local taxonomists, which causes heavy dependence on foreign experts.