Grassroots Citizen Science at the end of the world: Balancing barriers and opportunities in New Zealand

New Zealand has a flourishing citizen science movement with initiatives covering a spectrum of volunteer engagement. Both scientist-led and community group-led projects are growing in number and diversity. Additionally, a... [ view full abstract ]

New Zealand has a flourishing citizen science movement with initiatives covering a spectrum of volunteer engagement. Both scientist-led and community group-led projects are growing in number and diversity. Additionally, a range of community-friendly tools have been developed to enable community groups to measure variables associated with their environmental restoration projects. To provide insights into future citizen science project development, a questionnaire was emailed to 540 community environmental groups throughout New Zealand. Themes included: support received and required from project partners; monitoring activities carried out; barriers to setting up monitoring programs; monitoring priorities and data use. To further explore the latter themes, a series of interviews (n=34) was carried out with resource managers and scientists. Questionnaire participants (n=296) underscored the necessity for long-term support across project partners while the twin barriers for monitoring program establishment comprised shortfalls in funds and volunteers. In spite of this many groups have well-established monitoring programs (≥6 years). Terrestrial monitoring predominated but groups also reported considerable interest in future water quality monitoring. While most data were used for guiding restoration management, the majority of groups that provided data to resource managers were unaware of how those data are used. Interviews underscored data validity concerns though most interviewees acknowledged the potential utility of community-generated data. Citizen science is a highly dynamic field with ecologically literate community groups uniquely positioned to have greater input into environmental decision-making. Findings are discussed against a backdrop of continued environmental declines, much needed cohesion and strategic direction for citizen science nationally, and proposed collaborative approaches for managing New Zealand’s freshwater resources.