I know this is a big can of worms, and one that some of us may not want to open! But it has come to the fore again with a story in Nature recently that you might have seen, about the arrest of two Czech entomologists for collecting illegally inside a national park. This is raising a number of critical issues:

1. Is it ethical for scientists to collect specimens and take them out of the country for research purposes?
2. Are the govt. measures taken to “protect biodiversity” too sweepingly broad, and counterproductive in the long run if they raise the time (and red-tape) costs for researchers to the point where they are tempted to collect illegally?
3. Why do foreign scientists think they can get away with collecting illegally in developing countries like India where they would hesitate to do so in, e.g. the US?
4. And are incidents like the one above likely to make things worse for scientists within India to be able to carry out legitimate research?

I don’t pretend to know the solution to this, but it seems to me that the formal process of applying for permits, and the screening of such applications, needs considerable reform to become more streamlined and transparent. There should also be greater recognition for the value of international collaboration. In an era when the rest of the country is inviting and indeed celebrating foreign investment and cooperation in lots of other areas, how about asking for the same in science?

I bring this up here because this issue affects people working in ecology and evolutionary biology in the field, even those not working on endangered species.

And an aside: I can’t help but note the irony in my not being able to link to the full nature news item (the link above takes you to the headline and some feedback on the story) even for discussion within this network!