Taxonomy, taxonomists and biodiversity

Malaysia is one of the mega-biodiversity centres, with many species still waiting to be described. The number of taxonomists in Malaysia is small and they are fast dwindling for a variety of reasons. The lack of young taxonomists to replace them is worrying. Universities in this country are churning out students with little or no knowledge of how taxonomy is carried out. Despite the fact that identification s fundamental to all aspects of biological science, most organisations, students and funding bodies regard such endeavours as unimportant, and there are no national initiatives to train taxonomists. Taxonomists are needed to identify organisms for biodiversity, ecological, medical and economic reasons, for future food security and bioprospecting, and for a proper understanding of ecosystems. As long as man is dependent on biological resources for food and other essential products and is still under threat from pathogens, taxonomy will remain relevant. The challenges faced by many concerned taxonomists are to train interested young researchers and to equip them with relevant skills. Future taxonomists will need to master morphological, molecular and other techniques, develop verbal and writing skills to communicate and disseminate information, acquire computational skills and stimulate an interest in taxonomy in organisations and funding bodies. The current lack of interested candidates results from the low esteem of the discipline, the lack of job opportunities and the fact that future taxonomists will need to utilise a wide range of technologies and work on a range animal groups with little opportunity to specialise. Since there is currently no viable alternative to traditional taxonomy, what can be done to solve this problem?