Crowdsourcing biodiversity watch
Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - 22:30
in Earth & Climate
Following the 2006 ban on sturgeon fishing, the Romanian town of Sfantu Gheorghe, located at the mouth of the Danube river, turned to other income source to replace its fishing based economy. Thus, local children undertook to map out a plant called sea buckthorn, as a first step in forecasting its potential harvest value. Sea buckthorn is a coastal bush which produces yellow berries, typically used in food, beverages and traditional medicine. To achieve their goal, the children used mapping and GPS facilities made available from a crowdsourcing-based biodiversity monitoring initiative called Naturalliance.