I want to optimize my time spent on iNaturalist to best use my skills to improve conservation, and particularly motivate efforts to slow down global heating. I understand that all non-captive observations are useful to science, but I want my observations to have clear, specific, near-term effects. (Defining “near-term” as “within three months, ideally”). For example, just tracking insect populations over time to provide evidence for shifting baselines doesn’t seem very motivating or meaningful to me if I don’t think it will affect decision-makers’ decisions any time soon.
Notable Skills
I believe I have the most skill, overall, in broad identifications of arthropods, particularly insects. I can get most insect observations in the U.S. state of Texas down to order, and sometimes suborder (e.g., Diptera to Brachycera, Hymenoptera to Apocrita, Lepidoptera to butterflies, beetles to weevils)
I can also make broad identifications of skeletons and sometimes tracks. (e.g., Mammalia to Carnivora, Mammalia to ungulates).
I can identify most plants of Texas down to class (e.g. Plantae → conifers, Plantae → monocot/dicot), and sometimes more (e.g., grasses, sedges, Asteraceae)
I readily notice small things, such as mosses and lichens, small insects, galls, and plant diseases. I can crouch or lay down to photograph tiny things with a smartphone camera, and I’m willing to get close to the water’s edge to photograph things there.
I am not properly equipped for and not particularly interested in making bird observations.
Possible options:
Make broad identifications on especially imperiled and/or high-biodiversity habitats without enough identifiers, such as the Amazon Rainforest (although my identifications may be broader there than for Texas, and I’m more likely to make mistakes, such as mistaking Chloranthes for Dicots).
Focus on making observations of endangered/vulnerable local species that don’t get much attention (e.g., river mussels).
Broad identifications targeted on endangered species (assuming local/national governments are legally required to protect their habitats)
It might be the best use of my skills to target endangered invertebrates specifically if there are fewer identifiers for those.
Broad identifications on clades that command conservation money more generally (e.g., butterflies, large mammals)
Focus on clades or habitats whose ecological health can be put into clear, near-term “dollars and cents” value for Texas politicians, which may respond better to this approach. (e.g., the environmental health of the sea affects the seafood industry, and there’s the decline of agriculturally important pollinators).
P.S. Yes, I do also engage in more conventional environmental advocacy (e.g., calling and writing to decision-makers). I believe it would be good to have multiple channels of impact, with my iNaturalist activity being one of them.
I think this is a very thoughtful approach. One approach I will add is that you can add encouraging comments to new users, or even seek out observations of rare or imperiled species posted by people who may not know much about them, and provide some friendly, helpful information about the species, why it’s in trouble, and some links to resources that explain how to help. This has the potential to change someone who is just mildly interested in nature to someone who recognizes the ecological significance of their land/community, who then becomes an advocate themselves.
given the freedom to spend your time and resources as you want, you really should do what you love to do, regardless of what you think is important.
that said, if you don’t love doing anything in particular and still want to do something, you could find some policy papers or academic articles that you like which are based on iNaturalist data. talk to the author(s) to see what additional research they are interested in doing. if you think it’s interesting and important, ask how you can help with those efforts.
Gosh, I’m going to be very pessimistic here. If the very dramatic illustrations of global warming (rapidly melting glaciers, striking graphs showing warming trends, polar bears without ice to hunt on, etc) haven’t been enough to impact decision makers, I can’t imagine anything you’d document on iNat that would be noticed more than a drop in the ocean or a grain of sand on a beach. I think your time would be best served in a different way.
You could focus your efforts on taking pictures of organisms which are dying because of extreme heat, drought or wildfire. But I think you will be disappointed if you hope to slow global warming within three months.
iNat data really isn’t generally of a sort that lends itself to immediate applications for conservation. I can’t see iNat being a very satisfying experience if tangible results and usefulness in the short term is the central criterion for measuring whether one’s activities are worthwhile.
That said, probably the best way to increase the likelihood of having a real-world impact would be to find conservation projects that are using iNat as a way of collecting and organizing their data to support efforts taking place off of iNat. Examples that come to mind here are projects that document animal mortality (roadkill, bird window strikes) in order to identify locations where interventions would be most effective (wildlife corridors, building modifications, etc.), or possibly some of the projects to track the spread of new invasive species (e.g. spotted lanternfly, joro spider, Asian hornet).
Have you seen iNat Exec Director Scott Loarie’s TED talk? He profiles how iNat has been used in science and as part of local, community led, conservation efforts.
As others have noted, I don’t think iNat activity is a way to make a serious difference within three months. Neither conservation nor scientific research really run on a three month timeline. Most conservation actions take months/years of planning. Scientific studies take months/years to run/do analysis and more months/years to publish. So, for instance, even in best case scenarios, you are looking at any impacts being farther out -
Let’s say a user discovers a new species on iNat or one previously thought extinct (something I think many iNatters dream of and is one of the more tangible, dramatic ways iNat can make a difference). It will take:
A few days-weeks-months for it to be IDed correctly.
A few weeks-months for that info to get to someone who works with that species/manages it.
A few months-years to publish the find scientifically.
A few months-years to implement conservation policy around it (maybe concurrent with formal science, but policy might also depend on the find being formally published for implementation).
Let’s say a user is a billionaire that wants to use their money for conservation (absolute best case scenario! Unrelated to iNat). They would need to take:
A few weeks-months to hire someone to then study how to use their billions to greatest impact/make an action plan
A few years to implement those actions (eg, buying large tracts of land for conservation and then hiring people to do ongoing management/protection).
OR donate those funds immediately to other groups (non-profits, NGOs, iNat, etc.) who already have people on staff and some plans, but will still need months-years to implement those plans with existing staff.
Conservation in general and policymaking in particular are a mid-long term game (but mostly long…). My personal take is that one way iNat is useful is that it does keep people engaged in nature on a daily/weekly/short term basis. When you are fighting in the long term, it is really easy to lose motivation, forget the reason you’re fighting, get discouraged, and/or lose the joy/love that made you want to fight the long fight to begin with. iNat is a way to stay positively engaged in small little doses (finding something cool you never noticed, getting an ID from an expert you never would have otherwise, helping someone else learn about nature, making friends/connections on the platform or the forum, etc.) that can keep you going and remind you why nature is worth fighting for. I realize that’s a really nebulous argument that isn’t quantifiable and may not be as satisfying as hard data to people (like me) who want tangible, concrete results, but I do think it is likely true.
What works sometimes: use your big ears, find some place where Gogole Megacorp Inc. is planning to build/expand a datacenter for AI servers, document as much as possible of the biodiversity at this location then get it quickly and reliably IDed, and alert others (NGOs, media, etc.) if any species of interest. In a nutshell: locate potential wrenches to be thrown in gears.
So, I’ve found there are some really amazing positive impacts that can happen at a local level. Granted, these impacts may not incorporate thousands of acres or millions of people, but they make a genuine influence on local management.
I’m lucky to work in the ‘urban ecosystem’ – a mosaic of green and gray areas – and we’ve utilized iNaturalist data and engagement to preserve some really special nature parks and preserves in Dallas/Fort Worth. I give a bit of a narrative on one preserve here: https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/sambiology/82384-charles-f-ladd-nature-preserve-celebration
We used iNat to highlight not just the biodiversity but also the naturalist community that seeks out places like this.
Alaska and the North-West coast of USA and any landmass that was under thick ice are rising (sea levels dropping) due to isostacy. By the same means the South-East coast of USA is sinking (sea levels rising). Efforts to stop sea level rise from global heating are futile.
Ecosystems responded to changing temperatures by spreading north/south or uphill/downhill. This process is more and more interrupted by human sprawl.
If you want quick results, find a cute insect and a cute native flower (don’t have to be endangered) to push for more habitat for them in urban and farmland setting.
I am not a policy expert. Someone could chip in what would a low cost initiative be that would increase occurrence of native plants and reduce insecticide overuse.
I applaud the question. Too often, we are told that “every little effort makes a big difference”. Certainly, every effort is better than nothing, but some contributions are much more likely to have an influence on things we care about than others.
I loved @sambiology’s example, and would extend that to make the point of thinking about the offline parts of iNaturalist: such as organising a bioblitz of a local area where biodiversity might not be well documented yet, crucially, involving other people in this, and getting together with other like-minded naturalists to keep an eye out for threats to the area and responding to them.
It might seem very local and insigificant, but if you want tangible results, then you’ll need to be highly focused. The impacts any individual can have on large-scale policy-making are typically diffuse, indirect, intangible, and take many years of determined effort to bear fruit (not that you shouldn’t also try for that, if it’s your interest). You can sometimes have a more tangible impact by being strategic and working locally.
Here in Virginia, the Master Naturalists (a state-administered volunteer corps) have been asked to specifically make more iNat observations and identifications in public lands and parks. State land managers are chronically underfunded, and having this information helps them, in turn, to better inform lawmakers and serve the public with their land management decisions. It’s indirect – but I thought it was relevant as a specific ask from our state’s environmental stewards. (The state also manages species lists of endangered and invasive species, which can guide you and which your data may in-turn guide)
love that hahaha! It’s such a despicable strategy but it’s for a great cause so I guess it’s ok
If everyone does this, could we prevent any datacenter from ever being built ever again?
I work in environmental consulting, and as a part of consulting for development projects we do an online screening for observations of species at risk within a certain radius of the project site, using multiple platforms including iNaturalist. If a species at risk has been observed nearby and wasn’t already expected then it might trigger extra surveys to confirm presence/absence of the species on site. So in that respect, if there are similar species at risk regulations in your area, you could theoretically make an impact by thoroughly searching for and documenting species at risk across the landscape. The impact of this might be reduced though as governments seem to be trying to reduce species at risk regulations across North America currently…
In the absence of legal protection or NGOs that care, the best you can do is inspire more people to care so that there’s more chance of those kinds of protection some time in the future. Other people have talked about that, iNat is a great way to inspire interest in biodiversity in people and there are many ways you can do that, whether by identifying for newbies on the website or by getting people you know IRL to use the platform more.
Yeah, there is that one way which actually changes ‘decision makers’ quickly - but there’s a reason the people who don’t want things to change quickly call it “treason” and attach the harshest responses their society permits to it.
Depends on countries I guess. While some people may call it “treason” or “despicable strategy”, in at least a few of them it is not criminalized (yet) but very legal… or even a requirement that project promoters take into account prior biodiversity data (as available through administrations and publicly-accessible databases) in addition to their own field studies if any. Meanwhile NGOs and grassroots movements are similarly entitled to challenge projects in court, using existing datasets or producing new ones with the help of volunteer (amateur/pro) scientists.
There is no need to criminalise something you’ve already rendered ineffectual in other ways.
Anyway, here’s an explanation you can tap your toes to, from that great and sorely missed purveyor of Things They Never Taught You In School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxWEYF_nlqg
As a conservation biologist woking for an NGO I am finding new and very useful ways to use iNaturalist in my work. We have used Bioblitzes to discover and highlight the biodiversity of a threatened area. During one bioblitz on public lands agency biologists and outside experts found a new undescribed species of scorpion. I went out later and documented more observations of this undescribed species, and was able to get feedback from the biologists.
I have used iNat to document locations of a rare desert penstemon that was threatened with a huge new transmission project (that will feed energy to hungry data centers), and the project proponent at least moved the line off the plant population. Their contract biologists saw my iNat observations and they went out a few days later and undertook their own surveys.
I send iNaturalist Projects of an area I am monitoring to government agency staff in order to share with them my findings, and this is important more than ever on public lands and in an age when land-managing agencies are short-staffed. I have been thanked by Bureau of Land Management folks for being out there and monitoring conditions on the ground when they can’t. Agency staff often want to know what is out there: special status species, drought conditions impacting plants, rare plant populations, biodiversity hotspots that might be worthy of increased protection or mitigation from development, to name a few.
