Don't leave them alone! “Citizen managers” can make the difference in Italy's Kentish plover conservation

Abstract

The Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) has been in steep decline in recent years in southern Europe (147/2007 “Birds” EU Directive; Montalvo & Figuerola, 2006; Vidal et al., 2015). Along the Italian coasts, this bird is highly vulnerable when it breeds on sandy dunes, conflicting with beach-related tourism and related threats (dogs and synanthropic predators, trapping by fishing lines, dune trampling, mechanical cleaning of beaches: Pietrelli & Biondi, 2012; Battisti, 2023; Battisti et al., 2023). Further threats have emerged in recent years: for example, in Italy, a series of big musical events have been launched since 2019 (https://www.lanazione.it/viareggio/spettacoli/jovanotti-tour-2019-1.4331111): these concerts impacted on dunes with implications for Kentish plovers' conservation (Battisti, 2023).

To mitigate these threats, and halt the decline of this species in Italy (<600 breeding pairs; BirdLife Italy, 2023), scientists recently published reports on reliable field sampling protocols (Imperio, Nardelli, & Serra, 2020) and a focus group update periodic reports on the (dramatic) trends at the national scale (https://comitatofratino.org/).

At the same time, at local scale, many volunteers, heterogeneous in terms of background and skills (e.g., citizens, stakeholders, local associations, staff of protected areas) act autonomously to protect nests, implementing simple but effective actions and often develop creative solutions (e.g., Borgo et al., 2019). In some cases, behind these groups lie expert ornithologists with the skills, budgets, and professional operators that allow for the launch of local projects (Mencarelli et al., 2013; Battisti et al., 2023). However, in many other cases, citizens organize themselves with great enthusiasm but scanty support from scientists, encountering hard conflicts with beach users (dog owners, bathers, and fishermen; Pierobon, 2021). Unfortunately, they are also witnesses to the continuous loss of nests and chicks (e.g., Galasso et al., 2022). Social media host many examples of these failures (e.g., https://www.ekuonews.it/18/05/2022/foto-vandalismo-nelle-aree-del-fratino-la-denuncia-delle-guide-del-borsacchio/).

Therefore, a dramatic “divide” emerges between strategies promoted by scientists at the national level, and “tactical” circumstances experienced by local groups in operational beach front lines, often lacking resources, training, and coordination.

Certainly, citizens who act independently have many weaknesses (e.g., lack of skill, few resources, adopting a naïve and emotional approach). However, they also have many strengths: they operate in large numbers and are widespread, highly motivated, and with a lot of time available for rapid and cost-effective actions (e.g., beach clean-ups, dune delimitation, communication, and people supervision). Even the expert ornithologists, alongside undoubted strengths linked to their scientific training and expertise, have weaknesses. First of all: they are limited in number and often live far away from the beach front lines. Therefore, it is (urgently) time to do a matching of the strengths both of citizens and scientists aimed at halting the decline of the Kentish plover, overcoming their reciprocal weaknesses (Battisti, Gustin, & Polinori, 2020).

Unlike many conservation projects, the protection of the Kentish plover can involve simple and cost-effective actions that can be carried out by citizens who, once trained and coordinated, can act in a capillary way as “citizen managers” (Battisti & Cerfolli, 2021). These small (but effective) actions may include: beach clean-ups to remove trapping fishing lines, delimitation of the dunes (with limited effort and using low-cost materials), communication to the people on duty on the dunes, the continuous monitoring and control of the breeding sites in the spring period (“surveillance camps”; see Miller, 2006). In all of this, there is the opportunity for the involvement of younger generations: for example, communication aimed at making people aware of the role of dunes for this species can be carried out by children's drawings (Battisti, Frank, & Fanelli, 2018), students themselves can carry out surveillance actions and interventions (e.g., building of anti-predatory shelters), using waste materials to creatively communicate through educational dioramas the role of entrapping fishing lines as a threat (Jacobson & Monroe, 2007; Aslan et al., 2014). Furthermore, due to the social pressure on the Kentish plover's habitat, we suggest that protection activities should be considered a much-needed training in the social dimension of conservation, as has been suggested for Zoological Gardens (Gippoliti, 2011), as an addition to the training for both volunteers and scientists.

Action-oriented citizens can make a difference in protecting the nests of this threatened bird: why leave them alone? Why not use this human resource? Scientists should overcome their “analysis-paralysis” (i.e., “the unhealthy obsession with numbers, analyses, and reports”; Zuckerberg, 2008), producing fewer reports for field sampling and more freely accessible guidelines for “citizen managers”, training and coordinating them to assign purpose, role, competence, and autonomy: all useful components to improve motivation (DeCaro & Stokes, 2008). This will allow the definition of effective and pervasive actions on the beach front lines for this charismatic and umbrella species of bird (Mencarelli et al., 2014).