Monitoring and Citizen Science

Rewilding is a journey into the unknown and unexpected. In addition to getting to know the community site, it will be important to monitor change. Rewilding Britain is developing a Rewilding Monitoring Framework to help with this. As they point out, ‘Rewilding is defined by an absence of fixed targets or end points and the way it embraces uncertainty.’ 

Ways in which communities are approaching this include: 

• Ury Riverside Park emphasises the value of baseline data ‘so that future generations can see how the park has changed over time.’ They have trustees with expertise in botany, who enjoy doing transects and quadrats. They have also placed counters at the entrances, to know how many people are using the park.
• Glenmidge Burn Project is exploring the role of soil sampling, helped by the fact that one of their trustees is an environmental chemist.
• Carrifran and COAST have both learnt much from acoustic surveying – recording the sounds of the ecosystem. Carrifran mentions the ‘luck’ of having expert birdwatchers as members of its Steering Group. The Carrifran data on birds has provided a compelling story showing the return of woodland birds over 25 years, to a formerly bare valley.
• Collecting data on damage to your local environment can also be important and empowering, like reporting sightings of trawlers in marine areas where a trawling ban is in place.
• Camera traps can help to record passing mammals, but may not provide consistent data.
• Many communities are making a continuous record of change through sequential photographs, taken from the same point every month or season.
• Working with local universities and local naturalist groups can bring in additional support.

Different metrics for different audiences

Measuring change, and demonstrating impact, is exciting and rewarding. It can also be hard work     , especially if you need to report to a public body with fixed expectations. Some areas of land in Scotland are designated or protected, which means the Scottish Government helps look after the site. Sometimes it does this directly, but it also does this by offering advice or keeping track of what is happening. 

If a site is designated, the species listed in the designation will take precedence over all other species and habitats from the government’s point of view. Some large-scale community led restoration projects have found themselves challenged by requirements to prioritise certain species rather than allow all the natural processes to return. 

Citizen science

Citizen science involves a wide range of people collecting information about the species they see and hear in a given time period.

The term ‘citizen science’ is used in different ways, but it can mean biological recording (such as birdwatchers noting their sightings, or moss enthusiasts conducting a field day), organised surveys by volunteers, or systematic observations by divers. All of this data is valuable, especially if communicated and analysed. Local Record Centres are important hubs for receiving biological observations, whether in notebooks, by email, or as records submitted through apps such as iNaturalist. 

Monitoring the species and habitats also provides an opportunity for wider community involvement. In urban areas, regular outings can be arranged with natural history societies to help people record. Unusual or ‘difficult’ groups of species can be particular attractions: for example, moth trapping can delight and amaze participants with revelations of unseen creatures. A popular approach is to organise a bioblitz – often a one-day event, to survey and record all the living species in a given area (or more likely, as many as possible!). 

Even where collected using rigorous protocols, some community rewilders experience difficulties having their data accepted by official bodies. Or they struggle to find the resources to put it all into a computer. Marine community organisations COAST and Seawilding both solved this problem by partnering with academic researchers, who have the motivation to analyse and publish the data. COAST’s decade of work has enabled scientists to study the changing occupants of the seafloor in the protected areas. Seawilding’s work with oyster and seagrass restoration is pushing the boundaries of science. Both are now well-established organisations which welcome scientists. As Seawilding said, they offer to share equipment, and in return learn about the seabed.