| Abstract: | Conservation research can be broadly defined as the applied research on conservation of ecosystems, which ranges from biological conservation and water resources protection to climate change mitigation. In recent decades, relevant disciplinary fields, including conservation biology, landscape ecology, soil science, and water resources engineering, have developed to address complex conservation issues, with additions from interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary research (Reyers et al. 2010). Furthermore, multiagency conservation research programs have been established in recent years to build the bridge between conservation research and decision making, such as the Natural Capital Project jointly developed by Stanford University, The Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund (Tallis et al. 2010); the Market Based Instrument (MBI) Program in Australia (Grafton 2005); the Conservation Effect Assessment Project (CEAP) in the United States (Duriancik et al. 2008); and the Watershed Evaluation of Beneficial Management Practices (WEBs) Project in Canada (Yang et al. 2007). In the process, communication and collaboration have played a significant role in facilitating conservation research development. However, the flow of information within and between conservation research projects, groups, and agencies may be still not as free as it should be. Data sharing is still restricted to certain extent due to institutional and other barriers (Nelson 2009). The source codes of some models and tools are not open to the users. Some of the information or products may be open, but lack of clear documentation still causes access difficulties to the users. With increasing demand on conservation knowledge development, improving the sharing of information and products has the potential to significantly increase the productivity of conservation research. Therefore, a critical question arises, can we move forward to develop “open access” in conservation research? |