Assessment of Multiple Citizen Science Methods and Carbon Footprint of Tourists in Two Australian Marine Parks

Adam K. Smith (), Joseph D. DiBattista, Samatha J. Tol, Leona Kustra, Joanne Stacey, Toni Massey and Paul E. Hardisty
Additional contact information
Adam K. Smith: Reef Ecologic, 14 Cleveland Terrace, Townsville, QLD 4810, Australia
Joseph D. DiBattista: School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Southport, QLD 4222, Australia
Samatha J. Tol: Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER), James Cook University, Cairns, QLD 4878, Australia
Leona Kustra: Coral Conservation Society, 15372 Victoria Ave., White Rock, BC V4B 1H2, Canada
Joanne Stacey: Reef Ecologic, 14 Cleveland Terrace, Townsville, QLD 4810, Australia
Toni Massey: Cultural Heritage Management Australia, 4/8 Hampden Rd., Battery Point, TAS 7004, Australia
Paul E. Hardisty: P38 Media and Consulting, 12a Myera St., Swanbourne, WA 6010, Australia

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-21

Abstract: Citizen or community science (CS) projects in the marine environment rarely consider carbon footprint and sustainability. In this case study, we assessed the effectiveness of ten CS methods used by tourists in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) and Coral Sea Marine Park (CSMP) who participated in the 2023 Citizen Science of the Great Barrier Reef expedition and the carbon footprint associated with these field methods. We also assessed the baseline coral reef knowledge of the tourists, observations of marine species, and the communication of our results to the public. Specifically, the tourists utilised up to ten methods: iNaturalist, CoralWatch, Great Barrier Reef Census, Eye on the Reef (EoR), environmental DNA (eDNA) testing kits, photogrammetry, social surveys, and Red Map, as well as marine debris and marine vegetation collections. A total of 10,421 data points were collected across 14 days, including 5390 records (52% of the total) uploaded to iNaturalist, comprising 640 plant and animal species. Public awareness of the CS expedition reached over 700,000 people based on estimates from advertising, media, social media, family and friends, and conference presentations. We estimated the total carbon footprint for the expedition as 268.7 tonnes of CO 2 or 4.47 tonnes of CO 2 per person, equivalent to AUD 112 needed to offset this input. Based on these results, our recommendations to leverage CS methods include governmental review strategies, temporal replication to allow for the measurement of changes through time, integrating sustainability into CS ecotourism platforms, and encouraging broad participation.

Keywords: carbon footprint; coral; Coral Sea; fish; Great Barrier Reef; environmental DNA; iNaturalist (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/11019/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/11019/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:24:p:11019-:d:1544727

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().