It all depends what you’re studying and the quality of the data gathered in my opinion. I worry that a lot of disturbance is being done by people on iNaturalist in the name of ‘gathering data’ while being unaware of the consequences of destructive activities like peeling bark or moving logs from their original position.
On one hand, I’ve seen arguments that iNaturalist is primarily a place for people to learn more about nature and gain some knowledge/respect for the natural world. On the other hand, I’ve seen people advocate for and cite the scientific value of citizen science in documenting species and behavior in a way that may not be feasible otherwise due to limitations in funding/researcher-time. I won’t argue side or the other, just to point out that there may be some cake-having/eating happening.
I doubt this debate will go away or be resolved anytime soon, but I will say that it is disheartening to see some try to ‘wave away’ habitat disturbance/destruction by saying that:
- it’s in the name of science
- it’s really not that much damage
- OK it might be some damage, but see #1
- and anyway there’s lots of learning to be done through these activities
As there aren’t clear accepted standards on behavior while naturalizing, ‘[leave no trace principles like ‘leave what you find’ and ‘respect wildlife’](https://www.nps.gov/articles/leave-no-trace-seven-principles.htm)’ aside, I worry that people are left to judge the merits/impacts of their actions alone, and with literally hundreds of thousands of active users (and growing), the impact starts to add up in places that are especially sensitive/visited.
I think the original question is compelling and good to ask another way, Are we loving nature to death?
I’ll leave some articles here which have explored the topic, one of which (1) is a scientific study which proposes that human recreational activities may pose the greatest risk to endangered plants overall.
(2) Popular science digest on the above article (https://insidescience.org/news/nature-lovers-may-risk-loving-nature-death)
(3) Social media like Instagram (and iNaturalist) may be facilitating destruction of natural areas through overuse, (4) trampling superblooms and (5) facilitating poaching of succulents in South Africa and California
I can’t say that we should all stop exploring, since that isn’t practical, but I argue that we need to be more conscious of our collective impact on species and the habitat degradation that comes along with seemingly innocuous acts with good or neutral intentions of learning about and enjoying nature and documenting species.
Perhaps iNaturalist needs an ethical code of conduct similar to ‘leave no trace’ if it doesn’t already have one? Or at least to educate people on the possible impacts of their actions and issues to consider when out in nature. You’ll never be able to reduce impact to zero (just being outside sets animals on edge or could introduce pathogens/weed seeds, etc.), but you can try to minimize your personal impact and educate others to do the same.
All these arguments aside, many activities done in the name of exploring/documenting nature, including handling reptiles in CA are illegal and can be penalized by fines when done on public lands.
Simply by asking the question on whether your activities are endangering the natural world you want to explore, you’re clearly on the right track in my opinion. In case it’s not clear, I enjoy exploring nature, but try to minimize my impact as much as possible while encouraging others to do the same, since without this consciousness, we do indeed run the risk of killing nature as we explore it.