Citizen science and marine conservation: a global review

Abstract

Climate change, overfishing, marine pollution and other anthropogenic drivers threaten our global oceans. More effective efforts are urgently required to improve the capacity of marine conservation action worldwide, as highlighted by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030. Marine citizen science presents a promising avenue to enhance engagement in marine conservation around the globe. Building on an expanding field of citizen science research and practice, we present a global overview of the current extent and potential of marine citizen science and its contribution to marine conservation. Employing an online global survey, we explore the geographical distribution, type and format of 74 marine citizen science projects. By assessing how the projects adhere to the Ten Principles of Citizen Science (as defined by the European Citizen Science Association), we investigate project development, identify challenges and outline future opportunities to contribute to marine science and conservation. Synthesizing the survey results and drawing on evidence from case studies of diverse projects, we assess whether and how citizen science can lead to new scientific knowledge and enhanced environmental stewardship. Overall, we explore how marine citizen science can inform current understanding of marine biodiversity and support the development and implementation of marine conservation initiatives worldwide. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Integrative research perspectives on marine conservation’.

Connecting to the oceans: supporting ocean literacy and public engagement

“…Citizen science is a form of informal and (potentially) experiential learning, as participants learn via engaging in science activities (Crall et al 2012) and knowledge-sharing (Nursey-Bray et al 2018;Pecl et al 2019). Citizen science, particularly marinefocused programmes, has expanded in scope and scale in recent years (Roy et al 2012;Hyder et al 2015;Nursey-Bray et al 2018;Kelly et al 2020). Citizen science has been identified as an effective and rigorous method for advancing marine conservation and improving management (Cigliano et al 2015) by enhancing public engagement (Danielsen et al 2014).…”

Integrative research perspectives on marine conservation

“…In the final section ( §4 'Nature and people'), we approach marine conservation as a socio-ecological management issue. Kelly et al [62] provide a thorough review on how marine citizen science informs the current understanding of marine biodiversity and supports the development and implementation of marine conservation initiatives. The connection between management of land and consequences at sea is at the core of the analysis of the stormwater impact on coastal ecoregions along the US west coast (Levin et al 2020 [63]).…”

The Concept, Practice, Application, and Results of Locally Based Monitoring of the Environment

“…In category D, local stakeholders are involved in data collection but other activities are carried out by professional scientists. Example programs within monitoring category D are volunteer monitoring of water or air quality, sound, rainfall, weather, vegetation, fungi, mammals, birds, amphibians, fish (for a review, see Kelly et al 2020 ), invertebrates, bacteria, invasive species, and toxic algal blooms (Anderson et al 2019 ) and fisher, angler, and hunter records programs, and data collection by paid local people.…”