Tegan Douglas, Western Australia Citizen Science Project Coordinator, Birdlife Australia

Conducting ecological research in urban areas is often viewed as fraught with potential peril. Not only can confounding threatening processes or constraints of the urban landscape complicate study design, but researchers report equipment deployed in the field can be damaged or disappear entirely, and experiments can be inadvertently turned on their head by well-meaning public or miscommunication with land managers. High foot traffic makes research activities of any sort highly visible in urban spaces, so any specimen collection, sampling, tagging or marking can quickly come under public scrutiny where the rationale behind the research is neither transparent nor clearly communicated to residents. These can deter potential urban ecologists.

And yet we know urban ecosystems pose questions worth answering. Our urban areas still retain high numbers of threatened taxa, landscape modification is altering species’ behaviour and the way urban communities interact with wildlife can have unintended negative consequences. Furthermore, we know appropriate urban development decisions are necessary to retain the remaining biodiversity and ecosystem function, and there are opportunities for conservation as urban design adopts climate mitigation strategies.

Community engagement can be seen as a burdensome, time-consuming task, or not ‘core business’, to many practitioners brimming with research questions to answer. Yet working with communities is often a necessity in urban ecology, and can yield substantial benefits. It is an opportunity to expand research scopes and better translate research findings into practice.
Involving the community in the research process through contributing knowledge or collecting data, i.e. citizen science, can expand the survey effort and geographical coverage beyond what is achievable with research staff alone. Clever project design can harness specialist knowledge that many in the community have of their local flora and fauna, or take advantage of data collection potential from hobbies such as birdwatching or photography to collect observations or re-sight information on marked animals. Citizen science not just expands the data collection capacity but also facilitates data collection in spaces like private residences that might otherwise be under-represented.

Involving the community in the research process also has positive flow-on effects. In urban landscapes the community are vital stakeholders. As residential property owners, they are land managers. As users of parks and reserves, schools, golf courses and other tracts of urban land, they have interests in how that land is managed, even though their prime motivator might not be ecological. If they are contributors already actively involved in the project, local community groups working in the same spaces, or even just passers-by that ask questions when they see you out collecting data, they gain an appreciation for the project and the issues involved. Not only does scientific literacy increase, but so does knowledge of local conservation issues, as well as increased ownership over the fate of local species and landscapes—momentum for positive behavioural change. In many conservation scenarios, practitioners lament the impetus to make the management changes that research has highlighted is critical, through lack of funding, political will or long-term investment by land managers.

For urban ecologists, connecting with the community creates valuable advocates in the urban landscape. Communication facilitates the translation of research findings into positive land management, creates behavioural change and has the potential to influence policy at local, state and federal levels to create better outcomes for taxa in urban spaces. A platform of people all communicating the same message and advocating for protection of urban ecosystems is a powerful thing. We know that human connection to nature has important benefits, and that people only stand up for what they understand. Connecting communities with nature is in the best interests of urban ecologists. It has good outcomes for ecosystems, for communities and for researchers.
For more information follow Tegan on Twitter: @tegandouglas

The Great Cocky Count, a long term citizen science program in which the general population observe and record Carna-by’s Cockatoo numbers, has greatly increased our data on this endangered species, as well as increasing local awareness of this species. Credit: Georgina Steytler.

Read the rest of the September 2019 ESA Bulletin.