Reattributing the “Where”
Conservation is all about geography;
  however, most biodiversity is not
                geo-referenced.
Conservation is all about geography; however, most of biodiversity is not geo-referenced.  As a consequence, the majority of the primary specimen data that document biodiversity must be post facto geo-referenced in order to capitalize on the current revolution in computer mapping and spatial analysis brought about through Geographical Information Systems (GIS) tools.  In the course of taxonomic revision, we have systematically assigned coordinates whenever possible to all historical specimens that originally lacked coordinates.  Reattributed primary specimen data reside in TROPICOS (http://www.tropicos.org/), the world’s largest botanical database, which is freely accessible from the Missouri Botanical Garden through the Internet.  Comprehensive, geo-referenced specimen data for selected Malagasy species constitute the Madagascar Plant Conservation Database.