No abstract

The first two decades of the 21st-century have seen the emergence of the modern citizen science movement, increased demand for niche eco and wildlife tourism experiences, and the willingness of people to voluntarily share information and photographs online. To varying extents, the rapid growth of these three phenomena has been driven by the availability of portable smart devices, access to the Web 2.0 internet from almost anywhere on the planet, and the development of applications and services, including social media/networking sites (SNSs). In addition, the number of peer-reviewed publications that explore how text and images shared on SNSs can be data-mined for academic research has surged in recent years. This systematic quantitative review has two goals. The first goal is to provide an oversight of how the photographs that ecotourists share online are contributing to wildlife tourism research. The second goal is to promote the emerging photovoice technique as a theoretical context for social research based on the photographs and comments that ecotourists share on SNSs. From the perspectives of community benefits, conservation behaviours, and environmental education, there are many similarities between authentic ecotourism experiences and quality ecological citizen science programs. Much of the literature regarding the theory and practice of citizen science reports on the difficulties of attracting, training, motivating and retaining community members. The synthesis of this review is that crowdsourcing wildlife and tourism data from comments and photographs that ecotourists share on SNSs is a credible method of research that provides a self-replenishing pool of citizen scientists.

This data descriptor summarizes the process applied and data gathered from 50 publications/papers reporting on the use of photography generated by tourists, tour operators and members of the public, with a particular focus on the crowdsourcing of photographs through online platforms and social networking sites (SNSs) as a method of research for wildlife conservation and ecotourism. The papers were collected in a systematic literature review to inform a pilot study of the feasibility of using SNSs to crowdsource georeferenced photographs of endangered Bornean Pygmy Elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis) taken by ecotourists along the Lower Kinabatangan River region of Sabah, Malaysia. Papers were sourced using the Murdoch University Findit online-search tool to search over 100 databases, including Proquest, Scopus and Web of Science. The criteria for a paper to be included in the review (and shared via the dataset attached to this this data descriptor) were that it was peer-reviewed, published in English, between 1997 and the 31 December 2017, had the full text accessible online and reported on a study or studies that utilized photographs that tourists, tour operators and/or members of the public generated and shared via SNSs or online platforms.

This pilot study explores the potential of using a citizen science approach for sourcing volunteered geographic information via social media to research wildlife tourism interactions with endangered Borneo Pygmy Elephants on the lower Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia. Such information is critical if the lower Kinabatangan region is to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through a sustainable tourism industry based around viewing the pygmy elephants. Guests and guides from the Sukau Rainforest Lodge were encouraged to become close-range remote sensors by sharing geotagged photographs of pygmy elephant sightings on Flickr. A ten week on-ground trail generated 247 photographs shared by 17 individual contributors with approximately two-thirds (65%) of photographs being georeferenced for the time and location of the elephant sighting. Plotting those sighting to explore the vegetation matrix (i.e. remnant forest or oil palm plantation) showed almost three-quarter (73%) of the sightings occurred within 1 km of an oil palm plantation. Of greater concern is that one in two sightings (50%) along the river occurred within the 500 m of an oil palm planation, which is inside the riparian buffer that the Sabah Government recommended for conservation of the elephants in their Lower Kinabatangan range. This study therefore demonstrates proof of concept for this research method and its further application at the nexus of wildlife conservation and sustainable ecotourism research.