The Importance of Citizen Science for Biodiversity Monitoring

Photo by Jonas Verstuyft on Unsplash

On 8 October 2021, the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 48/13 recognizing that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right.

The establishment of citizen science dates back to the mid 1990-s, when a sociologist Alan Irwin described it as “a form of science developed and enacted by the citizens themselves”. The role of public involvement in environmental problems is important for the prevention and detection of the latter. Therefore, citizen science makes an important contribution to the policymaking process and raises awareness of environmental problems.

Pros and Cons of Citizen Science

The citizen science is open to all who are willing to participate, which makes it worldwide widespread and easy to access. However, at the same time, this source of information and data is less reliable because of its openness to non-qualified specialists.

On the one hand, we have motivated and engaged citizens who care about their environment and know it better than the government does. They know the main issues their environment is facing and may possess the valuable insights into local environmental problems [1]. These are some advantages of citizen science:

• citizens may participate in day-to-day environmental monitoring;
• they have access to local environments;
• they are curious and concerned about their environment;
• their contribution is voluntary.

On the other hand, the information obtained from citizen science might be unstructured and sometimes unfounded and low quality. It is challenging for the governmental monitoring teams to process vast amounts of data and observations alongside their main occupation.

Nevertheless, citizen science has proved to be an important part of environmental management. Some of the citizen science’s initiatives became separate projects which successfully contribute to the environmental protection and monitoring.

For example, Brooklyn Atlantis [2], a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project, helps monitor the water quality in the Gowanus Canal. Students in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science developed mobile instrumented buoys to analyze the waters, take pictures, and gather data using a variety of sensors.

One of the biggest citizen science projects is The Christmas Bird Count [3]. With more than 115 years of birds observation and 70,000 participants, this project contributed to the development of bird conservation methodologies with hundreds of publications, many of which in important scientific journals.

The Wildflower Count is another citizen science project which involves people all over the world to collect data about the trends in plant diversity [4]. There are several ways volunteers can contribute: wildflowers paths and wildflowers plots are the most common. You can either walk a 1 km path, noting flowers along the way, or survey a plot near your area.

Despite being conducted by volunteers and ‘non-professional’ scientists, citizen science is a valuable part of environmental monitoring and protection all over the world. Thus, it has to be well-regulated on the governmental level.

European Regulation of Citizen Science

Since the 2015 White Paper on Citizen Science was published, citizen science’s popularity started increasing in European countries, rising however some questions about its drivers and challenges, as well as a mechanism of its implementation. Therefore, in 2019, a big survey was carried out by the members of the Working Group 3 “Improve society-science-policy interface” of the COST Action CA15212 on Citizen Science [5].

According to the survey, citizen science have higher or lower impact on all levels (political, scientific, economic, and social). However, the awareness of the citizen science’s positive impact is the lowest on the political level, which makes it difficult to implement the achievements of citizen science on the national, not to mention on regional level.

Citizen science could be a valuable source of knowledge and information for public authorities and have a greater impact on policy, such as the European Green Deal and other EU and global priorities, such as, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [6].

‘In particular, citizen science could offer a valuable source of complementary information for the biodiversity strategy for 2030,’ — EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.

One of the main organisations for citizen science is The European Citizen Science Association (ECSA). ECSA’s mission is:

• To connect citizens and science;
• To promote sustainable development through citizen science;
• To ensure that citizen science contributes to policy processes [7].

ECSA members have as well contributed to the drafting of legal documents, which became the foundation of citizen science on the European continent: 10 Principles of Citizen Science, and the Characteristics of Citizen Science.

Other significant achievement of the citizen science in Europe was the Doing It Together Science (DITOs) Project. Its main purpose was to organize public engagement events dealing with citizen science in do-it-yourself (DIY) biology and environmental sustainability [8]. Both these initiatives engaged policymakers to pay higher attention to the achievements of citizen science and its contribution to the environment protection and monitoring.

American Legal Views on Citizen Science

In the United States of America, citizen science is supported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. It is generally called participatory science and is developing in the United States through a range of resources including funding, technical support, and tools [9].

EPA’s opinion on citizen science found its acknowledgement in a document “Using Participatory Science at EPA: Vision and Principles”. In this paper, EPA discusses participatory science’s:

• use in EPA programs;
• collaboration with state, tribal, and local governments, as well as other federal agencies;
• and support for participatory science work in academic and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and directly with communities [10].

In 2016, Congress has passed the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act. Its main purpose was to advance and accelerate scientific research, literacy and diplomacy, and other purposes [11].

In 2018, the Latin American workshop on citizen science for biodiversity conservation took place in Mexico City. In the final report, the most important results of the two-day workshop were mentioned. 42 initiatives of participating countries were announced, among them:

• capacity building/community engagement (12 initiatives);
• education and training (9 initiatives);
• birdwatching (6 initiatives) [12].

Biodiversity monitoring was among the frequently discussed themes, especially those oriented on problem-solving approach.

A lot of countries were presented on the workshop. Many of the Latin America countries have strong views on citizen participation in environmental monitoring. In Mexico, there is the federal agency devoted to promoting biodiversity knowledge, use, and conservation, which was created in 1992. Brazil has multiple platforms of biodiversity information, the most important are: Science and technology biodiversity system (STBS) (scientific collections and museums) and Portal Bio-Institute Chico Mendes (recent field studies and threatened species).

In many other countries, there are no governmental regulations on citizen science, but there are the lots of NGOs, which actively participate in decision-making process.

Citizen Science in African Countries

According to the UN Environment Programme report “The State of Biodiversity in Africa: A Mid-term Review of Progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets”, Africa is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth [13]. However, the report states that, overall, biodiversity in African countries is declining, which is caused by a combination of human-induced factors [14].

The importance of citizen science in Africa was reintroduced during the active participation of the United States International University-Africa. Until the year 2017, there was no continental citizen science organization in Africa. However, after the December 2017, Meeting at the United States International University in Nairobi, the UN Global Citizen Science delegation defined the goal to help African countries in the development of their own Citizen Science initiative. The 5th November 2021, The First Inaugural Citizen Science Africa Meeting took place. The purpose of this meeting was to define the shape and the character of the Citizen Science Africa Umbrella body [15].

In 2016, the LIBSENSE initiative was launched in order to build a community of practice for open science and progressing the adoption of open science services and infrastructures in Africa. Led by the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN) in collaboration with sister regional African RENs (ASREN and UbuntuNet Alliance, this Africa-wide program provides an avenue through which different stakeholder communities collaborate to define priority activities, share knowledge, and develop relevant services [16].

Another example of the citizen science initiatives in Africa is the African Open Science Platform. It was established in 2017 and aims to position African scientists at the cutting edge of data intensive science by:

• stimulating interactivity;
• creating opportunity through the development of efficiencies of scale;
• building critical mass through shared capacities;
• amplifying impact through a commonality of purpose and voice [17].

Asian Legal Aspects of Citizen Science

Asian region is very vulnerable to the climate change, because more than a half of agricultural land in South Asia is rainfed.

Governments in South Asia countries are trying to address this issue by introducing participatory natural resource management initiatives such as the watershed development programs across India by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, a government owned development financial institution [18].

However, these initiatives are not enough, and it is challenging to collect adequate data and conduct research on the impacts of climate change. Therefore, citizen science is a good addition to the governmental programs.

Despite the fact, that citizen science initiatives are just gaining popularity in Asian region, Eastern historical background has a significant amount of traditional and experimental knowledge, which makes it more open to alternative views and methods.

One of the most vulnerable countries in the region is Bangladesh. They have a weak infrastructure, which makes it impossible to deal with extreme weather conditions, such as flooding or low crop yields. To face this problem, the University of Bergen launched the project called the Transforming Climate Knowledge with and for Society. TRACKS project started on 1 June 2014 and had a goal to educate the communities of northern Bangladesh so that they would have high-quality knowledge of their local climate [19].

Another project launched in India — SeasonWatch — which started in 2010, has an aim to monitor the annual cycles of flowering, fruiting and leaf-flush [20]. They encourage everyone, especially students, to participate in this project to help track the changes happening to more than 130 species of common trees.

The importance of citizen science in Asian region is immeasurable. A good level of citizen science in the region could be achieved through:

• raising awareness of communities and active citizens on the impacts of climate change;
• organising citizens and linking them to local scientists;
• maintain a connection between citizen scientist and government;
• monitoring the impact of citizen science on the fight against climate change.

To Sum Up

Environmental problems are an issue that concerns every living being. Therefore, each of us is responsible for managing these problems and has the right to participate in their management. Citizen science is an example of how people can be involved in the process of creating a better environment for future generations and fighting the climate change.

Most countries recognize citizen science as an important part of the global campaign against environmental degradation. Each continent has its regulation of citizen involvement, either as a hard law or soft law.

An important thing to notice, though, is that citizen scientists are mostly just amateurs, that makes it hard for governments and international authorities to give them legal grounds and take into account their findings and research. However, each year, citizen scientists become more and more influential in the decision-making process regarding environmental protection.

References:

1. THE ROLE OF THE CITIZEN IN ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT, ROBERTS E. and DOBBINS J., Environmental Law Institute. 1616 P Street. N.W.. Washington. DC 20036, USA
2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of Technology Management Polytechnic Institute of New York University Brooklyn, NY 11201
3. The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) Citizen Science project
4. Plantlife International Conservation Membership Charity
5. Exploring Citizen Science Strategies and Initiatives in Europe, Marina Manzoni Katrin Vohland Sven Schade, 2021
6. Best Practices in Citizen Science for Environmental Monitoring, by Kim De Rijck (DG Environment), Sven Schade (Joint Research Centre), Jose-Miguel Rubio (European Environment Agency) and Marjan Van Meerloo (DG Research and Innovation)
7. European Citizen Science Association
8. Citizen Science in Europe, Katrin Vohland, Claudia Göbel, Bálint Balázs, Eglė Butkevičienė, Maria Daskolia, Barbora Duží, Susanne Hecker, Marina Manzoni & Sven Schade, 2021
9. Participatory Science for Environmental Protection, United States Environmental Protection Agency
10. Using Participatory Science at EPA: Vision and Principles, Office of Research and Development Office of Science Advisor, Policy & Engagement
11. Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016
12. FINAL REPORT OF THE LATIN AMERICAN WORKSHOP ON CITIZEN SCIENCE FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION, MEXICO 2018
13. The State of Biodiversity in Africa: A Mid-term Review of Progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, UNEP Report
14. UNEP, EU and CBD Assess African State of Biodiversity, October 2016
15. The First Inaugural Citizen Science Africa Meeting, October 25, 2021
16. The LIBSENSE Intitiative: Strengthening open access and open science in Africa
17. The African Open Science Platform
18. How citizen science is building climate resilience in South Asia, 4 October 2019, Published in collaboration with Acclimatise, Uma Pal
19. Transforming Climate Knowledge with and for Society, Research Project
20. SeasonWatch India-wide program