Use of iNaturalist for recording indigenous and local knowledge

Does anyone know of an application of iNaturalist to record IKS - either for inventories or monitoring purposes - with semi-literate participants in mind? Thanks a lot.

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iNat really requires ‘evidence’ of species presence (Photo or sound recording) so not likely a great platform for ‘knowledge’. However, this info could be compiled and shared as a new resource on GBIF and then content could be combined with iNat observations.

Another option is to associate common names in local languages with a specific location and then users can choose to use these names under their personal setting. Example - instead of choosing common names associated with Canada I could choose to view common names from Unama’ki

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Local knowledge can be used for inventories, e.g. adding species/taxa to lists for places, but monitoring is probably can be done only with observations, casual ones if there’re no photos.

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Indeed, adding local names is a great way to compile local knowledge. But never forget to put the location where the name is used!! That is also important as it helps recognize where exactly they call this species that name, without mixing with others.
For example, Beautempsia avicennifolia and Capparicordis crotonoides have the same common name “bichayo” or “vichayo” (both spellings are equally valid) in Northern Peru. However, in some regions B. avicennifolia gets the name “guayabo de gentil” (“gentil” is a saying referring to goblins, spirits, etc. - litterally “goblin’s guava”) and Capparicordis crotonoides gets the name “bichayo” - yet the exact opposite happens in other places. I spent some time in Lambayeque province - they called it “bichayo amargo” - to differentiate with the edible Beautempsia.

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This brought a question I had multiple times. Could someone add information to a species page? like, this kind of information that is local knowledge. (citing sources if needed.)

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Yes, you can add information to the “About” page for any taxon. But is done through Wikipedia, not iNaturalist, so I can’t really comment very knowlegably about that process, having only done a tiny bit with Wikipedia.

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Now it’s only from external resources, as Wiki, which is better than nothing, but big problem right now is Wiki does ask for citations, so maybe one day iNat will have own species pages where you could fill info without papers behind it.

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The best place for knowledge/information ‘observations’ is GBIF. on this site one can include occurrence information and populat many more DwC terms (https://dwc.tdwg.org/terms/) to help clarify the content.
The bonus feature is that on GBIF each resource is associated with an EML metadata page where one can include all kinds of information to help others understand and intrepret the dataset.

It is also possible to include a multimedia file in the GBIF resource package - this file could include URLs for associated iNat observations.

When studying species distribution is really important to include local and indigenous knowledge along with traditional surveys along with citizen science. There are many ‘scripts’ that can extract/combine/analyse content from multiple platforms.

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on the taxon page I believe that common names are associated with location as well as language, correct?

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Yes, exactly. There is an option to choose a specific place there. That’s what I meant…

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Yes, I think “localization” with adding names specific to a region / language (in the language script) would be one step.

It would also make it accessible to a whole new group users who are not familiar with binomial names.

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