The first cuckoo in winter: climate change and citizen science

The first cuckoo in winter: climate
change and citizen science
Anna Lawrence
Environmental Change Institute
University of Oxford
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What is citizen science and what does it
have to do with ethnoecology?
“scientific work in which a network of volunteers,
many of whom may have no specific scientific
training, perform or manage research-related
tasks such as observation, measurement or
computation.”
Based on local knowledge, local realities, and
local observation of nature – and a long tradition
of natural history.
Studying it can tell us more about knowledge
processes, and how values, knowledge and action
are related.
Pablo Eyzaguirre “nothing like suburbanites for
ornithological knowledge”
Anja Christanell “need to encourage emotional
reaction and culture of engagement”
The theoretical questions
Science studies: should we make decisions
about the environment democratically, or
by relying on experts? (Collins and Evans)
Participatory governance: What contribution
does participation make to empowerment
and governance?
Environmental anthropology: Is the
supposed polarisation between scientific
and local knowledge, between abstract /
rational and contextualised / emotional
useful? (Milton)
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Put another way …
What difference does it make who
gathers the evidence?
Are there really ‘two ways of
knowing’? [Berkes et al., 2000]
[what, only two?]
My model for thinking about this:
Society
(People)
Lawrence, A., 2006 “No personal motive?” Volunteers,
biodiversity and the false dichotomies of participation.
Ethics, Place and Environment 9(3): 279-298.
Nature
3

Society
(People)
Society
(People)
Motivation
?
Policy
processes
?
Motivation
?
Policy
processes
?
Environmental
activities
Environmental
governance
Environmental
activities
Environmental
governance
Recording?
Informatio
n
(external)
Interpretation
?
Observation
?
Nature
Management
?
Observation
?
Nature
Management
?
4

Society
(People)
Motivation
?
Policy
processes
?
Values and
experience?
Experienc
e (internal)
Empowerment
/ motivation?
Environmental
activities
Environmental
governance
Recording?
Informatio
n
(external)
Interpretation
?
Observation
?
Nature
Management
?
5

Longest biological data set in Britain
• 1736 Robert Marsham ‘Indications of Spring’ – for 62 years
• 1875-1947 Royal Meteorological Society coordinated
national network (155 observers in 1899)
• Individual recorders provide valuable data in the gap
• 1998 Phenology Network revived
• 2000 Joined with Woodland Trust
• 2005 Website starts linking to climate change discourse
(Kyoto, disappearing arctic ice)
• Now > 24 000 members (1/2 on-line)
• 2005 Linked to BBC for Springwatch / Autumnwatch
• More than 100 000 people contributed 200 000
observations in 2005
• 2007 Renamed ‘Natures Calendar’
6

Why this engages British people
We love to discuss the weather
Gardening is the no. 1 hobby
We have 200 years of amateur
natural history …
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The Dutch ‘Nature’s Calendar’
Uses ‘Early Birds’, a Sunday morning nature programme
with ½ million listeners
4000 registered recorders
More women than men – contrast with traditional recording
“People can see what the impacts are. And it’s not
something that’s far north – the polar bears – but it’s just
in your own back yard. And that’s a very strong element of
this network.”
Objectives: understanding impact of climate change on
nature and society; ‘raise sense of urgency among the
public’
But does it?
– ‘I haven’t a clue’.
– I was a computer person but now I’m changing
– The problem is that even when you are walking in the forest
you’re constantly within the network … ‘oh that’s flowering’…
it’s part of your life
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The wider media
How do scientists use this data?
We analysed 133 biological papers
based on data collected by
volunteers
77% discussed data accuracy
– 47% checked the data
69% acknowledged the volunteers
31% considered the effect on the
volunteers
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Reasons given for involving
volunteers (n=133)
Species monitoring
Education / awareness
Increase geographical coverage
Conservation planning
More cost effective
Scientific research
Water quality monitoring
Foster ownership / stewardship
Promote citizen / government
cooperation
Use local knowledge
72
25
15
14
14
9
8
8
4
But other researchers recognise …
Role in ‘public understanding of science’ /
‘demystifying science’
Enhanced ‘scientific thinking’ of citizens
– E.g. proposing hypotheses to explain
observations
– Suggesting alternative methods
Some ‘unscientific’ aspects
– E.g. seeing their results as valid in isolation
from others
– Lack of skills in systems thinking / ecological
background
– Reluctance to survey random sites
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12

% of papers published in each year
phenology and climate change publications
25
20
15
10
5
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Quality / validity
Data checked (British
nature calendar)
Hierarchy of experts
Sheer sample size
(Dutch nature calendar
coordinator)
Rely on trends and
consistency across
different surveys (rather
than absolute numbers)
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Meaning and feeling
• As we engage with our environment
we perceive meanings in it
• These give things their value
• These meanings become known to us
through the emotions they induce
• Our actions are a result of our
motivations / values / feelings and
therefore meanings
Kay Milton 2002
Personal meaning
Christine d’Albert from Herefordshire:
for her birthday on 22 May her mother would
always bake her a cake, poking drinking straws in
the top and inserting a bluebell into each straw
among the candles. ‘My memory goes back to
1944 ... In recent years I have watched bluebells
flowering much earlier – more like 22 April and as
early as 19 April in 2001.’
‘A few minutes recording nature notes can give
hours of pleasure, and I’m thrilled to know that
they can be useful too in the study of climate
change.’
www.naturescalendar.org.uk/findings/past.htm
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Meaning-making: patterns, self-consciousness,
and sharing
“Has anyone seen hawthorn blossom this month? Last Sunday (01/10/2006) I
found a section of hawthorn hedge with quite a few blossoms mixed in with
ripe fruit ! ! ! ! Is this very unusual or have I not been looking too carefully in
previous autumns?” 3 October 2006
“Marsh Marigold has a regular late flowering in the pond in my garden in
Bristol, and is in flower now, but I haven't kept a note of dates in past.” 9
October 2006
“over the past four months … I have been watching a small group of 7spots
….They stayed inactive until the after the solstice but then slightly
shifted positions during early January. At the beginning of February, more
appeared and they were clearly moving around …What does all this mean? I
think that the main cluster was just 'asleep' but became active when the sun
became more constant and the temperatures rose. They then had to hide away
when the snow (followed by heavy rain) with low night temperatures came in
mid-February ..... Some may have died in this shifting of positions.
I wouldn't like to make too much of this sequence (although I have observed
the same site for many years over the solstice period).”
http://www.woodlandcommunity.org.uk/forums/messagelist.asp?commid=6&groupid=190&topicid=1060&fromloc=topiclist
‘How lyrical am I allowed to be?’
‘I remember a particularly lovely late afternoon in October,
… I was busy [monitoring the] hedge and then when I
turned round … there was nobody else around and there
was just the moon and it was clear and the sun and the
sheep and it was just – absolutely gorgeous’
‘I must have been a hunter-gatherer in the past because I
love seeing the diversity of all the things in a hedge, that
really turns me on, you can walk along and see all the
different things at the different times of year, and that
gives me quite a buzz, I mean actually spending the time
looking at a hedge, the wonder of that, you know, that had
an effect on my brain anyway, it’s soothing’
‘you can get depressed you know if you look at the whole
big picture, you just have to do what your little bit can be’
Participants in group discussions, Sussex and Leicestershire, 2005-6
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Citizen science? Or excuses to
be in nature?
• ‘I must have walked more miles across the wild brooks than I ever did
when I was in the military, and I just enjoy it … [after retiring] I used to
go for the same walk every day but I thought ‘”this is not right, I’ve got
to find something to do” and since I’ve done this you meet people, have
a chat, it’s just relaxing …’
‘I mean walking on a spring morning is lovely, but when
there’s a purpose to it that’s even better isn’t it’
• ‘it’s nice, but as long as you do it with a purpose in mind and at the end
of it you feel you’ve done something really quite good’
‘you’d feel guilty, wouldn’t you, sort of wandering along
not doing anything very much except looking’
Experience, governance and social
learning
Little engagement with
governance/ most feel powerless
to change anything
Monitoring biodiversity presents
often deeply emotional and
meaningful experiences
Few opportunities to internalise
the meaning of those experiences
The learning cycle needs to be
closed through reflection and
learning processes
People love opportunities to do
this
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Society
(People)
Motivation?
Policy
processes
?
Values and
experience?
Experienc
e (internal)
Empowerment
/ motivation?
Environmental
activities
Environmental
governance
Recording?
Informatio
n
(external)
Interpretation
?
Observation
?
Nature
Management
?
‘What prevents us … from pursuing … action … is not
plausibly a lack of data. It is much more centrally a
failure to integrate those data, a failure to make them
real to ourselves.’ Maguire, 1996
“does it matter if the opposition between emotion and
rationality is a myth? … Any failure to put the things that
people hold most sacred at the centre of public decision
making makes democracies, at best, undemocratic”
Milton, 2002
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Conclusions
• We adapt based on our experience (which
is based on information and meaning)
• Yes, we need those cultural heritages
• And to fill in the ‘local scale’ that models
cannot
But we also need
– consciousness of our meanings in the world
– cross-fertilisation of different sets of knowledge
and information
Thanks to:
Esther Turnhout (co-author of work from
Netherlands)
Sarah Gillett (co-author of survey of citizen
science projects)
Star Molteno (research for this presentation)
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