Hello,
I have made a few observations on Tribal Lands that only tribal members and few others have permission to access. I noted this in the notes section of my observations. Can there be a toggle button added so that others will know that they must have permission? I don’t want anyone getting in trouble or trespassing on sacred land. I also saw mention of Indigenous names of plants being added, which I fully support. For the longest time I was looking for Toza Root but I had no idea what the scientific name was. My family always just called it Doza. It took till recent times and much searching before I realized it was Lomatium Dissectum. So many sick days without it!
Thank you iNaturalist Team!
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You can obscure the location, for obs where you need permission for access.
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Many observations are made on private property (areas that most people cannot access without permission), and it is rare for these observations to be explicitly marked as such (which can be frustrating for field researchers trying to find populations of rare organisms from iNat observations, as I have experienced). Occasionally, an observer will specify in the notes that the location is private property (see: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/269434141) but this is not common.
The issue with access-limited tribal lands seems very similar. Both of these issues could possibly be addressed with a field when making observations for “Location Accessibility” or something like that.
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Local Contexts has created notices to support data sovereignty. I haven’t done a deep dive but there may be options there.
Yes, I’d say obscuring or making private the location of the observation would be the best way to protect the area. See more at https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169938
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Please, please, please obscure all of your observations taken on sacred land.
The law always comes before Inat.
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Unless you’ve been specifically told to do so by the tribe, this doesn’t seem strictly necessary to me. Unobscured observations are far more scientifically useful than obscured observations, and people should know not to trespass anyway.
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For my observations which I have made on non-public land, I either obscure them, or in the case where I have permission to post, I bulk edit the note to say “Area closed to the public”
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“Closed to the public in the description” is a good way to do it, but people also shouldn’t just assume that just because there’s an iNat observation doesn’t mean it is public.
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