ALIYA ABREU
PANAJI
With the growing concern surrounding global climate change and the extinction of species, now everyone can become a “scientist” and help in conservation in a way scientists alone cannot. “Citizen Science” is one easy way to document species from wherever you are. It helps document biodiversity and changes in biodiversity at a very large scale that one small team of scientists won’t be able to, explained Abhishek Jamalabad, the programme officer at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Speaking on the sidelines of the programme organised by the Forest Department and WWF on the eve of World Environment Day, Abhishek gave his own example of contributing to “ebird.org” which is a platform where birdwatchers upload a list of birds every morning. He elaborated, “I’m a contributor to ebird.org, even though I’m not a bird researcher. I upload whatever I see from my balcony each morning. All of that goes into a huge list of birds in India and the world and from there, scientists can see migration patterns, and declines in bird populations on a local scale.”
Citizen Science captures a huge amount of data that you can put on a map and you can see it on a large scale. This is the main value of Citizen Science to conservation. The second thing is it allows people to connect to nature. For those who want to go beyond birds, there is “inaturalist.org,” a platform where you can upload any living thing from bacteria to trees, and animals. Abhishek uses this portal to document seashore wildlife.
Wildlife biologist Nandini Velho explained that while Citizen Science is catching on in India at a good pace now, it has been widespread in countries like the UK, US and Australia for a long time. Through Citizen Science, people can track migrations of butterflies, snowy owls, and the concept has managed to get people to commit to tracking data regularly, even in dessert areas, said Nandini.
“Now with climate change, this has become even more relevant. You can see real time migration of species on ebird.org which is coming up in India in a big way,” she said. Nandini also explained another initiative called “Seasons Watch” becoming quite popular in schools in Kerala. “You monitor a tree and see when it’s shedding leaves, when it’s flowering, and when the flowers are in full bloom. These observations help us understand how trees are changing with respect to climate change. This is because plants use an external cue from the climate to decide when to shed their leaves,” she said encouraging people to try it in Goa because of how helpful it is.
In some parts of the world, Citizen Science has been going on over centuries, and Nandini has even read of a family who’s been tracking these changes in nature over generations, for 400 years. “It’s important to document different species because once you start, it then encourages curiosity in habitats beyond your home. You start to care about other habitats. This is how Citizen Science is used as a tool for conservation,” she said.
But how can a common person who’s not a scientist document a species that they do not know the name of for example? This is where technology plays a huge role. “If you have a photo of a bird or plant species you don’t know, you can upload it on the India Biodiversity Portal, on which there are scientists across the world who will identify the species for you. This is helpful for you because you learn the species’ name, and helpful for the scientist, because then they know the location of this species,” she said.
Making Bicholim the greenest constituency
PANAJI: Around a year and a half ago, a team of environment conscious youngsters got together to work on environment conservation through changing mindsets. These youth, who formed an NGO called “Thinkers” have been working with the citizens whom they feel are the most likely to make a change in the years to come - school going children.
To break down the daunting task of “conservation”, the seemingly most humongous and urgent task before humanity at the moment, “Thinkers” decided to start small and move ahead one constituency at a time. For now, the registered NGO has chosen to work with all of Bicholim’s seven educational institutes : three schools, one higher secondary and three colleges, which have a strength of 3,000 students in total. The team of 80 has decided to put in their best efforts and make Bicholim the “number one eco-friendly constituency” in all of India - a model for others to follow.
Last year, “Thinkers” tied up with one of the schools, with whom volunteers carried out 15 different environment-related activities. The aim is to carry out these activities over a period of time with the same students, and not just give them one or two sessions on the need for conservation, explains the NGO’s PRO Shorya Bisaria, an environmentalist with a Master’s in Social Work.
“We realised that carrying out activities with students over a prolonged period may
