[Citizen Science] Another way that Steem photographers and bloggers can help to advance science and protect wildlife
Background
I recently posted the articles, [Citizen Science] The Night Sky in South-Eastern Pennsylvania and Steem for Citizen Science: Globe At Night's March Campaign, where I demonstrated the ability for people on the Steem blockchain to contribute to decentralized science initiativees (aka "Citizen Science" or "DeSci"). Specifically, the GlobeAtNight web site runs a monthly campaign where people can submit observations of the night sky in order to measure global light pollution. (Reminder: The next campaign runs from April 9 through April 18.)
It's a piece of cake for people to submit an observation to the campagin and then write a blog post about it here on the Steem blockchain.
This weekend, I learned of another way that people can add DeSci activity to the Steem experience, through the iNaturalist web site/app. Unlike GlobeAtNight, this activity can be done at any time, so I wanted to post about it today.
Over the weekend, I contributed six wildlife observations to the site. The suggested identifications that I proposed were verified by other iNaturalist participants, and the observations were subsequently categorized as "Research Grade", which apparently means that the observation will be shared with certain scientific databases for use by researchers.
The species observed were as follows:
- American Red Squirrel (observation)
- Blue Jay (observation)
- Dark-eyed Junco (observation)
- Great Blue Heron (observation)
- Red-bellied Woodpecker (observation)
- Red-tailed Hawk (observation)
Here's the story.
Practicing Photography
After my recent trips to see the Bald Eagles at Maryland's Conowingo Dam (1, 2, 3), I wanted to start learning to be more proficient at photography, so I have been taking several "wildlife walks" per week in my yard. Although the yard is small, it has some trees, so birds and other animals can be seen frequently. During these walks, I take lots and lots of bad wildlife photos, and once in a while I luck into a good one, too.
Aside from the Great Blue Heron, photographed at Marsh Creek State Park, the photos all came from my yard or the small area of woods that is visible behind it.
As my photography continues, I find myself returning to a concept that I first discussed on Steem as far back as 2017.
Free Market Environmentalism
As mentioned, before, I have thought for years that the Steem ecosystem could be a powerful tool for Free Market Environmentalism. As a result of this continuing exercise in photography self-education, I've been thinking more about these concepts recently.
As I understand it, the fundamental principle of Free Market Environmentalism is this:
If it pays, it stays
In other words, if humans have a financial incentive to keep wildlife living and healthy, the wildlife will be preserved. Controversial political solutions are not needed if wildlife preservation is in alignment with human wants and needs. The problem becomes, then, how do we align incentives in the free market so that humans will be motivated to protect wildlife without coercion?
An obvious answer to this question is that people can earn rewards for blogging about wildlife encounters and contributing photos of wildlife. As discussed in my post, also referenced above, this has been clear to me since 2017. In that post, I also suggested adding tourism and gamification to the mix. Concepts that were later incorporated by The American Prairie Project (see also, Free Market Environmentalists are building America's largest wildlife reserve [with video embeds])
Implementing all of this is a big topic, though. Much bigger than one hobbyist can manage on weekends. In my thoughts, recently, however, I've been wondering about the possibility of scaling the concept down and implementing a small part of it with the use of free-tier LLMs.
So, I was chatting with Claude about the concept, and he mentioned the iNaturalist community as being particularly good at validating the legitimacy of submitted photographs. Of course, I had to try it out.
iNaturalist
It turns out that I've had an account with iNaturalist since 2014, but I had never even validated my email address, so this weekend, I went ahead and did that. (obviously, this is a long-term interest of mine, since 2014 predates Steem and it also predates my knowledge that Free Market Environmentalism even exists, as a concept.)
Here's how Claude describes iNaturalist:
iNaturalist is a free citizen science platform where anyone can upload photos of plants, animals, and fungi to help identify and track biodiversity worldwide. Users submit observations with location and timestamp data, and the community — along with AI-assisted identification tools — helps confirm the species. Observations verified by multiple experts achieve "Research Grade" status and feed directly into scientific databases used by researchers and conservationists globally. With over 200 million observations logged, it has become one of the most valuable wildlife monitoring tools on the planet.
As with GlobeAtNight, this platform is ready-made for Steem blog posts. Steem struggles with photo verification - something that iNaturalist apparently excels at. On the other hand, Steem rewards can motivate people around the world to submit observations of plants and animals that they encounter. Finally, if people can earn rewards from their wildlife observations, they're less likely to kill wildlife and destroy habitat - especially in low-income areas of the globe where poaching is common.
Conclusion
If you have an interest in nature or photography, I'd encourage you to give iNaturalist a try. The barrier to entry is low - take a photo, upload it, and let the community help with identification. As your observation count grows, so does your contribution to real scientific research.
The bigger picture, though, is what interests me most. Steem's reward mechanism, combined with a platform like iNaturalist, starts to look like a genuine implementation of Free Market Environmentalism in action. When wildlife photographers in suburban Pennsylvania - or rural Indonesia - can earn real rewards for documenting the animals around them, the math changes for survival of plant and animal species. If it pays, it stays.