Citizen Science in New Zealand
It is happening. I can see citizen science from New Zealand scattered here and there in various media. Landcare New Zealand even has a FB page for it.
Unfortunately the link to their main website at:
www.landcare.org.nz/CitizenScience
currently leads not to the Citizen Science page but to a Buller River Project page. I was hoping to find their 2016 publication, An Inventory of Citizen Science in New Zealand there.
Not found, which is odd for such a recent publication.
I will try to contact their contact person, but am afraid he may have become an ordinary citizen after recent cutbacks at Landcare.
On to the next...
The Auckland Council sent me a blurb this week about rates and other matters that concern us in Auckland, including a note warning that many tracks in the Waitakere Ranges may need to be closed because of kauri dieback disease. Those are probably tracks that the city has spent a lot of money to make publicly owned forests open access.
We like open access, but we are part of the problem in the case of the kauri dieback disease.
So the Ministry of Primary Industries has put up a good website telling people what the disease is, where it is, and how we can reduce the rate of spread by keeping our feet clean, and reporting suspected cases of sick trees.
See: https://www.kauridieback.co.nz
Monitoring the spread of the disease is definitely a useful target for a citizen science project.Anyone can call the Kauri Dieback Programme hotline on 0800 NZ KAURI (69 52874)
or email kauridieback@mpi.govt.nz for more information or to report a tree that looks unhealthy.
A range of contact people and educational activities are reported on the site. Private sponsors have also been supporting the effort. Companies can be good citizens too, and should be, as 'legal persons'.
I would like to say more, but less is a better plan.
If anyone would like to study citizen science in New Zealand seriously, I am sure a good paper could be written for Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, an international journal published by the US-based Citizen Science Association.