What is citizen science and why it’s important

The actors of citizen science

Increasingly, specialist researchers and the funds available to the scientific community are limited and in any case insufficient to tackle the problems connected to the monitoring and conservation of biodiversity at both local and regional levels. The direct involvement of citizens in the study and active conservation of biodiversity represents, from this point of view, a new, promising frontier. The acquisition of detailed knowledge on the biodiversity of an area can today be represented by the participation of a growing number of different subjects. One of the strengths of this process is the environmental sensitivity of citizens engaged in data collection in the field: people united by the desire to learn, participate and contribute.

How can they make it happen? With the use of technology.

In many parts of Europe the conservation of biodiversity makes use of the activity of a large number of groups and associations, which deal with the monitoring of large systematic groups (dragonflies, amphibians, reptiles), but also of small groups or individual species.

What is the motivation of a citizen scientist in the environmental field?