The Role of Citizen Science in Ocean Governance

Abstract

Over 40 years ago, Professor Elisabeth Mann Borgese recognized the need for effective governance of the oceans for the good of all of humanity. This need still exists, maybe even more so now, in addressing issues such as climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing, and floating islands of trash (to name just a few). But what can we do to advance effective and lasting governance of the ocean? Are there new techniques, policies, or international agreements that we can employ? Actually, I would argue that something as old as recorded history is one of our better hopes, namely, citizen science. Citizen science is public participation in scientific research, i.e., science conducted by amateurs. Prior to the late nineteenth century, almost all of science was conducted by amateurs (today, we would call them citizen scientists). Quite a few of these so-called amateurs have had a profound effect on science: Aristotle, Copernicus, and Darwin, to name a few. Darwin is of particular note, not only because of his theory of evolution by natural selection, but because as he was developing and working to experimentally support his theory, he collaborated with other citizen scientists from around the world who sent him observations and specimens, thus, making Darwin an early adopter of ‘crowdsourcing’1 citizen science. By the beginning of the twentieth century, amateur scientists became marginalized as the number of professional scientists increased and gained positions of authority.2 Fortunately, citizen science did not go extinct. Citizen science projects continued with professional scientists leading and citizen scientists contributing. Examples include Wells Cooke’s collaboration with citizen scientists (he referred to them as co-operative observers) on bird