Expanding the scientific basis for how the world can monitor and manage natural resources.

Abstract

This D.Sc. thesis presents research into the theory, practice, application and results of ‘citizen science’ as applied in the developing world (Africa, South East Asia, Latin America) and in the Arctic (Greenland). It focuses on the opportunities of engaging local community members in natural resource monitoring and management in those areas of the world where ‘citizen science’ was previously widely believed to be impossible. Using theoretical, experimental and real-world case examples, the thesis defines the existing types of natural resource monitoring system and examines the potential of locally-based approaches: (i) to provide high-quality information, (ii) to empower local people in natural resource management, and (iii) to impact on livelihood and biodiversity. The main results are summarized below.

1. DEVELOPMENT OF TYPOLOGY. A typology of monitoring approaches is proposed for the natural world. Five categories of monitoring are described, ranging from efforts where monitoring is undertaken solely by professional researchers to entirely local efforts with all the work undertaken by local people. This continuum of monitoring approaches largely mirrors the devolution of management responsibility in different approaches to natural resource management.

2. QUALITY OF INFORMATION. In vegetation plots in five major forest types, community members’ measurements of tree circumference were of comparative quality to that of trained scientists. Likewise, during foot patrols at study sites across all three tropical continents, experienced forest product collectors with limited formal reading and writing skills produced results similar to those of trained scientists on the status of and trends in species and natural resources. Moreover, in two case examples, findings from community-led focus group discussions on the abundance of natural resources corresponded closely with similar results from trained scientists’ field surveys.

3. POTENTIAL FOR EMPOWERMENT. The awareness about the opportunities that local communities now have for being ’heard’ can create the motivation that is needed for the community members to demonstrate their ability to act and themselves monitor the state of their environment and make responsible decisions. Natural resource monitoring where community members collect, process and interpret data and where the monitoring activities are integrated with existing natural resource governance systems, can contribute to political, social and economic dimensions of empowerment of the community members in natural resource management.

4. LIVELIHOOD AND BIODIVERSITY IMPACTS. Whereas scientists may still play a major role in influencing international and national conventions and regulations, locally-based approaches to natural resource monitoring can be more effective when it comes to generating local natural resource management interventions with the potential to impact on livelihood and biodiversity. Decisions from locally-based approaches to natural resource monitoring tend to be taken at the local, operational levels of resource management, where they involve the people who face the daily consequences of environmental changes.

5. FUTURE POTENTIAL. Locally-based approaches to natural resource monitoring have considerable potential for improving understanding of environmental changes as well as for improving the management of natural resources. ‘Citizen scientists’ may be the only feasible way to understand the changes on the planet with sufficiently dense sampling to build credible models of those factors that cannot be measured by remote sensing. This includes aspects of species abundance change, habitat use and degradation, local-use impacts on biomass and the ecological structure of harvested species and their ecosystems (on land and in the sea), the intensity of pressures on nature, and the introduction of new species. Thematically, locally-based approaches to natural resource monitoring have considerable potential: (i) to connect environmental performance with payment schemes, (ii) in efforts to bring indigenous and local knowledge systems into the science–policy interface, (iii) to inform resource management in rapidly changing environments such as the Arctic, and (iv) in efforts to link international environmental agreements to decision-making in the ‘real world’.

6. FURTHER STUDY NEEDS. Further research could substantially contribute to transform the way the world tracks changes in species and other natural resources on earth. Five key areas of research are proposed, from social theory on why people participate in these schemes, through analysis of ‘big data’, to considerations of accuracy and the technological developments necessary to make ‘citizen science’ approaches and data capture and analysis available to all – in developed and developing nations.