Oral Paper

         Education and Outreach

Inspiring Environmental Stewardship in an Urban Landscape by Increasing Science Accessibility, and Building Community

Presenting Author
Tohmi Barrett
Description
New York City is home to immense biodiversity. The NYC EcoFlora Project combines traditional outreach activities with the iNaturalist platform to increase awareness of and appreciation for urban biodiversity by engaging the public, fostering a sense of communal stewardship, and generating open source biodiversity data. The EcoFlora Project is a community science project led by the New York Botanical Garden to document and conserve the plants of NYC. It aims to amplify the role of community members in the scientific process of documentation and identification, who use iNaturalist to produce species checklists, track emerging invasives, document phenology, and make detailed observations of rare or potentially undescribed species. To date, nearly 20,000 observers have made about 900,000 observations of more than 6,000 species of plants and fungi in NYC. The NYC EcoFlora is a real-time, ongoing checklists of organisms—the first ever attempt to comprehensively document the diverse and ever-changing ecology that remains embedded within the city. The result is a dynamic resource for conservation planning as well as for New Yorkers who seek to increase their awareness about the more-than-human world.  In this talk we will share experiences and insights working with New Yorkers and iNaturalist to document biodiversity in a bustling urban landscape. Whether you have the resources of an institution like a botanic garden or university, or are a community-based, volunteer-run organization, we hope to continue to provide inspiration and support to similar initiatives to involve the community in the conservation of local and global biodiversity.