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I have just found interesting letter in Nature. It should interest some of you. It is nice, that also thanks to diptera.info exploration of biodiversity was escalated.
http://www.nature...8377a.html

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Interesting ... but the link requires membership of the Nature site before we can read the article :( Can you perhaps summarise it here?

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Arrghhh... Sorry, I thought that short letters are open access. I will cite below few sentences from this short letter:
"Non-professional taxonomists have been responsible for describing more than half of the animal species discovered in Europe from 1998 to 2007... The extraordinary current rate of description of new species makes Europe an unexpected frontier for biodiversity exploration."
"More than 700 new species are described each year in Europe — four times the rate of two centuries ago. However, we have not yet reached saturation in the inventory of European fauna, and we cannot accurately estimate the total number of species living in the continent's ecosystems."
"The unprecedented rate of species description has depended heavily on the scientific contribution of unpaid scientists (non-professional and retired professional taxonomists). More attention should be given to ways of enhancing this formidable workforce."
"The future of amateur taxonomy also depends on incorporating molecular techniques, either through formal training or through collaboration between molecular-oriented professionals and morphology-oriented citizen scientists." Fontaine et al., 2010, European bounty for taxonomists, Nature 468(377)

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Absolutely excellent summary ... the relative lack of support for amateurs is a tragedy and a huge missed opportunity for science. Many amateurs would be far more productive and would take on far larger projects if they were given support with grants or funding of some kind that would let them acquire better equipment or devote more of their time to taxonomy.