The first community-based bioblitz ever! – Using iNaturalist

One of our long-standing goals is to be inclusive in community-based management of the surrounding environment. There are always certain challenges faced when it comes to bringing local communities together to cultivate understanding and knowledge in how people are interconnected with nature. We attempted to motivate locals to be observant of the biodiversity around them so that they could cultivate an affinity to nature, understand biodiversity values, and contribute to biodiversity monitoring. Bioblitz is a great group activity to engage people with the environment. Using iNaturalist on the phone makes it very easy to compile observations of nature and produce quick summaries of their findings. We spent one day teaching several local farmers how to install the app, how it works, and what the goal was. We received positive feedback from this activity. We mainly observed several butterfly species, some lizards, and many flowering plants. After the event, we showed them how conveniently the website can gather the photos and summarize their findings. When more people join community-based bioblitz at regular periods, reliable scientific information can be derived from their efforts! We hope to increase the number of participants and frequency of bioblitz activity in the near future. 

Some photos of this event:

Local people learning how to use the iNaturalist app on their phones.

Then walking around to make observations of wildlife.

Lastly, returning back from the activity and summarizing their observations through the website.