Biodiversity is rapidly decreasing all over the world as reported in CBD COP10 at Nagoya, and various problems have remained unresolved. Collecting wide range of ecological data both in terms of time and space is necessary to understand and evaluate present situations and to take conservation actions. However, this could not be achieved only by the researchers, but help from the citizens who are interested in nature and willing to contribute in science is indispensable. Although involvement of citizens in scientific research, known as citizen science, is still limited in ecological field in Japan, in the United States, it has been grown rapidly in the past decade. In this symposium, we will discuss the effectiveness of citizen science for contributing to three fields; pure science, environmental education and conservation. We invite Prof. Janis L. Dickinson (The Cornell Lab of Ornithology), who is a leading person of this field, for a keynote lecture and will discuss challenges and social roles of citizen science in Japan and other countries.

Short report: Tatsuya Amano (University of Cambridge)