Hello everyone. I used to post observations mostly from Virginia, US, but now live near Medellín, Colombia. I post what I find mostly to document biodiversity. I have no formal education in any of this, but I am passionate about helping people notice and love little things.
I recently met an online friend in person for the first time. He is doing amazing things in documenting biodiversity here in Antioqiua and his pictures are fantastic. not identifying him since I didn’t ask his permission. He told me he has stopped sharing his observations on here because he has found “ecotourists” from outside Colombia at his favorite spotting locations gathering specimens. These are places people would not normally go to. Not parks or nature preserves or anything, but forested areas near my friend’s home that they are apparently finding because of geotagging of images on iNAT.
I understand that it is necessary to collect specimens for DNA analysis, etc. But gathering specimens for an ego boost is wrong, especially in a fragile ecosystem like the cloud forests here in Colombia.
How do we educate people so they behave ethically and respect our ecosystems?
If there were a way to effectively educate poachers, there wouldn’t be any poachers. The only way to protext the specimens would be to obscure the location.
Is there any evidence of them being there because of his observations? Also, how often does this happen?
As iNatters, we‘re often drawn to forests, so if Tourists that happen to be iNatters happen to be in the area, it is not unthinkable that they just went to the nearest green thing.
Or they were biologists?
If he still is scared that might happen, he could obscure the location of his observations. To prevent this sort of ecotourism is part of why the option to obscure the location exists.
Yes. Obscuring the location does that, I think. Though idk if scientists can see the precise location or also just the randomised one.
I think this is a key point. People behave badly without any help from iNat and it’s not clear that iNat location data is what led these ecotourist vandals to the site. But there are definitely risks and iNat provides quite a few options to protect location data for sensitive species.
Taxa regarded as sensitive to poaching can have location data automatically obscured for all observations. If you’re concerned about a particular taxon that currently is not obscured, add a flag so a curator can assist.
Any observer can set the location as obscured for any observation they make (or by default for all their observations).
Any observer can set the location as private for any observation they make (or by default for all their observations). This really limits the community ID process, but it’s available.
Observers can manually move the location pin and set the uncertainty circle to be wide enough to include the actual location.
Observers can delay adding observations for animals that are sensitive to poaching or disturbance (obviously not much help for plants).
Observers can decide not to post observations of taxa when they feel that none of the above measures gives sufficient protection.
Poaching and illegal collection happens already, and the goal here is not to facilitate that. Most of the control is going to be in the hands of the observer. We can and should try to educate people not to collect organisms without the relevant permits, but there will always be some who disregard that advice.
it’s worth noting that the way iNat obscures locations is not perfect, and any obscured location is still vulnerable to discovery. if you have a location or an ogranism at a location that absolutely needs to be protected, your best protection starts by not posting the observation.
i won’t explain here except to say that the true scope of the problem is unlikely to be obvious to anyone without a detailed explanation, and that even if i wrote many pages, few people would fully grasp the problem(s) in a way that helps anyone but bad actors.
that’s not what i’m saying at all. even if you understood the problem, if you’re not a bad actor, that information won’t help you more than the advice i highlighted above.
The same way iNat and other organizations have been doing it for years… slowly, carefully, with respect and meeting people where they are at. It is not an easy process but so far it is the only option we seem to have.
As far as I understand it, there are techniques that can be used to infer the location of obscured observations in at least some circumstances. iNat made a bunch of changes a couple years back to eliminate most of the more obvious routes, but it’s still sometimes possible to determine obscured locations more precisely than the 0.1-degree bounding box.
Given that iNat is a platform on which individuals are encouraged to share their encounters with nature, there’s (apparently) not much that can be done to further protect the small number of really location-sensitive observations without impacting all users’ ability to interact with the platform.
It may feel like we’d all be better able to decide what to share about observations if we knew the precise details of these exploits, but really the information we need to know is that some small risk exists and if you believe that an organism is especially likely to be a target for collection it could be better not to share the observation on iNat.
I agree that security by obscurity is not true security. However, sharing details of how to defeat obscuration certainly would make that information available to many more people and would not improve the information that iNat users need to make a good decision about what observations to keep off the platform.
Edited to add: I would be astonished if the thoughtless ecotourists in Colombia used this type of exploit. And as mentioned earlier, we don’t actually know that they used iNat at all.
I still think the best way is to teach little kids to engage with and value nature.
Warning - I read about this but haven’t read this link https://news.sky.com/story/children-using-catapults-to-kill-and-torture-animals-before-sharing-sick-images-on-whatsapp-13089025
If you miss that chance, high school kids.
Speaking for myself - despite living in the heart of the Cape’s fynbos - I only discovered that as a first year botany student. Never looked back, and now gardening, hiking and iNat ticks all my boxes.
CNC and GSB are another opportunity to reach the ones you missed before.
If you have some interest in, and understanding of the role your ‘ecotourist collection’ plays in local biodiversity - I hope you would not collect, unless a scientist with permit and purpose.
The sky article again recommends all the wrong measures (outlawing sale of slingshots, censoring whatsapp, …) to tackle the problem instead of going after the children involved. If they are that sick at a young age, the have a certain risk to burn houses later and end up as serial killers as adults. They should all be send to child psychiatrists ASAP.
This would likely be best approached in terms of what is an appropriate souvenir, as that is likely what is in an ecotourist’s mind. Given the choice between some tawdry trinket or bauble and a beautiful natural item, it’s easy to see why the ecotourist might rather make a collection.
Yup! I was on a plant walk with an expert botanist in Calgary. He showed us a spot where he saw 4 rare orchids in a city park. He took photos of the spot, and posted it on his Facebook account. He loves to share news about biodiversity. I think he mentioned the park, but not the location (it’s a big park).
He went back a week later . . . every orchid gone! Just holes in the ground.
So when he shows me plants now, I ask if they’re rare. If they are, I observe them with my eyes. I make old-fashioned memories. I don’t record digital evidence on my phone!