Citizen Scientists Help Assure Quality of Coastal Biodiversity Monitoring

In 2019, history student Rodrigo Gomes found out on social media about a call for volunteers to take part in a scientific project relating to the ocean and conducted by the Federal University of São Paulo’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMAR-UNIFESP) in Santos, on the coast of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. He signed up for the project, took workshops, and trained in the field. “I was very fortunate to have all that contact with professors and learned a great deal about conservation,” says Gomes, now a citizen scientist. “It makes a lot of sense to go on with the project and get other people involved.”

It is precisely this integration of science with citizen participation that the United Nations aims to bring about in the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, launched in April 2021 and due to last until 2030. A practical demonstration of the positive results of the formula is embodied in the study “Participatory Monitoring – A Citizen Science Approach for Coastal Environments”, in which Gomes took part.

The study was conducted with FAPESP’s support under the aegis of its Public Policy Research Program (PPPP). An article on the study, showing how science and citizenship can go hand in hand, is published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

The outcome was the development of a methodology for integrating civil society and academia, including the creation of a protocol for monitoring coastal biodiversity to be applied collaboratively by citizens and scientists.

Read more at Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

Image: A study conducted in the port city of Santos (Brazil) by researchers at the Federal University of São Paulo shows collaboration between civil society and academia. (Credit: Institute of Marine Sciences/UNIFESP)