Citizen science can improve conservation science, natural resource management, and environmental protection

Abstract

Citizen science has advanced science for hundreds of years, contributed to many peer-reviewed articles, and informed land management decisions and policies across the United States. Over the last 10 years, citizen science has grown immensely in the United States and many other countries. Here, we show how citizen science is a powerful tool for tackling many of the challenges faced in the field of conservation biology. We describe the two interwoven paths by which citizen science can improve conservation efforts, natural resource management, and environmental protection. The first path includes building scientific knowledge, while the other path involves informing policy and encouraging public action. We explore how citizen science is currently used and describe the investments needed to create a citizen science program. We find that:1. Citizen science already contributes substantially to many domains of science, including conservation, natural resource, and environmental science. Citizen science informs natural resource management, environmental protection, and policymaking and fosters public input and engagement. 2. Many types of projects can benefit from citizen science, but one must be careful to match the needs for science and public involvement with the right type of citizen science project and the right method of public participation. 3. Citizen science is a rigorous process of scientific discovery, indistinguishable from conventional science apart from the participation of volunteers. When properly designed, carried out, and evaluated, citizen science can provide sound science, efficiently generate high-quality data, and help solve problems.

Citizen Science and Open Data: a model for Invasive Alien Species in Europe

“…While adding value, volunteers acquire new learning and skills and gain understanding of scientific work (EC 2014). CS has now become a mainstream approach for collecting data on ecosystems and biodiversity (Newman et al 2012, Chandler et al 2016, McKinley et al 2017). …”

The Theory and Practice of Citizen Science: Launching a New Journal

“…This includes an uncountable number of projects in which people make and share observations, often across large geographic areas and over long spans of time (Miller-Rushing et al 2012). It also allows millions of people working online to help process otherwise unmanageable amounts of data in projects that involve activities such as classifying images, transcribing texts, or tagging pictures (Sauermann and Franzoni 2015).…”

“…For example, with the rising popularity of citizen science, informing scientists and policy makers of the rigor and quality of citizen science data and the scientific significance of project outcomes has become urgent. Several recent syntheses document the impacts that citizen science has on our understanding of biodiversity (Theobald et al 2015) and on policy and natural resource management in the U.S. (McKinley et al 2015). However, the subtleties of the methods and conditions under which projects can ensure quality control and quality assurance while effectively engaging public participants in research remains a key challenge in the field.…”

Funding Science with Science: Cryptocurrency and Independent Academic Research Funding

“…19 In proposals that are more theoretical than policy-driven, McKinley et al disrupting the current concentration in relatively few hands of funding and resources and to reduce researchers' reliance on governmental and commercial interests.…”

“…19,23 However, such work may underestimate the political power of higher education institutions, government, and commercial forces to continue to appropriate the power of science. Shore described such appropriation as "neoliberal," in that it attempts to privatize public goods-in this instance, scientific research.…”