https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8290-2096
Biodiversity conservation relies on knowing where species are and thrive. Due to major knowledge gaps in the distribution of biodiversity across the globe, therefore, our capacity to effectively preserve ecosystems remains partial (Amano et al. 2016). Citizen science (also known as community or participatory science) programs, where the public is involved in data collection and the scientific process, can reduce these shortcomings and provide thousands of nature lovers with an opportunity to have a positive impact on conservation (Callaghan et al. 2021). However, these programs typically concentrate in areas where people live and in countries of the Global North, where they are most widespread (Bowler et al. 2022, Waugh et al. 2023). Therefore, although citizen science can provide invaluable information for researchers (Haas et al. 2022, Wolf et al. 2022), it typically does so in the areas of the Earth with the most biodiversity data to begin with. This aspect, together with many other challenges and advantages of citizen science, has been thoroughly investigated over the past two decades (Chandler et al. 2017, Callaghan et al. 2021).
One promising aspect for addressing biodiversity knowledge gaps is the connection of citizen science with nature tourism. Nature tourism, broadly defined as forms of tourism where people travel to natural areas with the purpose of enjoying and engaging in activities in nature (Fredman et al. 2012), is the fastest-growing tourism sector in the world (Hultman et al. 2015). Millions of tourists, mostly living in Europe and North America, travel every year to experience nature across the world. In many of these areas, particularly in biodiversity hotspots, data are still sorely lacking. Meanwhile, nature tourists can be accompanied by local experts that guide them with extensive knowledge of the local flora and fauna. What if nature tourists were encouraged to record in citizen science platforms the biodiversity they are shown by local experts?
We call for broader recognition of the opportunity for biodiversity science provided by synergies between citizen science and nature tourism. To substantiate our call, we test whether the species we observed during a nature tour in Rwanda could provide valuable biodiversity data. While traveling, we serendipitously recorded at least one record of each species we identified in a 1-week trip, dedicating only a small part of our nature trip to collect such records (see the supplemental material).
The return of this limited time investment largely exceeded our expectations. As a team of one tour guide and two tourists, we collected 256 observations of 146 bird, mammal, reptile, insect, and plant species over 6 days (see the supplemental material). For 105 species, we recorded at least one new location (totaling 165 new locations) in comparison with data openly available in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF; figure 1). More specifically, we added 12 new locations for 7 species with fewer than 10 occurrences, 59 new locations for 36 species with 10–100 occurrences, and 93 new locations for 62 species with more than 100 occurrences.
(a) A map of Rwanda showing records for the 146 species recorded. The gray hexagons show the areas where the 146 species were observed solely on the basis of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, whereas the blue hexagons show the locations including new records from our trip. (b) The proportion of data that our trip records added for each of the 146 species observed, in comparison with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility data set. Each species is shown with a gray vertical line. The blue shades over the bars represent the proportion of new data points contributed by our 1-week trip. In both insets, the grayscale represents the log10-transformed number of observations, either contained in a hexagon cell (a) or for each of the 146 columns, representing different species (b).
The observations we recorded include some relevant data for conservation, such as the occurrence of a species that did not have any spatially accurate GBIF records in Rwanda (the fire-footed rope squirrel, Funisciurus pyrropus). We also observed endemic and threatened species, such as the Albertine Rift–endemic strange weaver (Ploceus alienus), the regal sunbird (Cinnyris regius), and the dusky crimsonwing (Cryptospiza jacksoni); the grey crowned crane (Balearica regulorum) and the bateleur (Terathopius ecaudatus), which are both listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species; and two new locations for the Vulnerable L'Hoest’s monkey (Allochrocebus lhoesti). Many of these new spatial records were sampled during travel between national parks, in locations that are of particular importance because they fall in lesser-known regions (figure 1a).
Overall, our case study demonstrates that, even with very limited commitment, collaborations between nature tourists and their guides have the potential to provide useful data for biodiversity science. Of course, there must be reciprocal interest in pursuing this goal for both the tourists and the guides. We hope that our Viewpoint will stimulate these collaborations for the sake of biodiversity conservation, especially because we expect nature tourists to be more interested in collecting biodiversity data than more typical tourists. This is particularly important when considering the magnitude of nature tourism as a social phenomenon. For instance, approximately 1 million tourists visit Rwanda each year. In 2022, more than 100,000 people visited Rwanda's three main national parks: Volcanoes National Park, Akagera National Park, and Nyungwe National Park (World Bank Group 2023). If even 1% of these nature tourists recorded just 10% of the data we recorded (i.e., approximately 25 observations), there could be approximately an additional 25,000 observations mobilized per year in Rwanda alone. Extrapolating these numbers to the many other countries hosting thousands of nature tourists every year, the picture that emerges is the potential to provide large amounts of biodiversity data for some of the least known biodiversity cradles on Earth.
We stress that we did not record all species we have seen in a systematic manner, nor invested more than a few minutes every day in this endeavor. Therefore, our results are conservative. In fact, we began to record data when it became clear to us that we were missing an opportunity to document the distribution of many unique species. We believe that many nature tourists are not aware of the vast scientific potential of the biodiversity data that they could mobilize. Such potential should be made clear both to tourists and to the local experts that work as guides, so that more collaborations like ours can occur. In addition, more studies should be conducted in hotspots of nature tourism and biodiversity to test the potential of this nature tourism and citizen science alliance. These studies will also allow exploring when citizen science can provide ancillary information on threats to biodiversity (e.g., invasive species), the negative impacts of nature tourism itself (e.g., habitat degradation, infrastructure overuse, and evidence of noncompliant behavior of tourists), and many other phenomena of interest (Callaghan et al. 2021).
The time is ripe for an alliance between nature tourism and citizen science, particularly because technology is making citizen science easier than ever. There are already smartphone applications that easily and freely facilitate recording species checklists everywhere on Earth, such as eBird and eButterfly (e.g., see table S1 in the supplemental material). The availability and affordability of digital SIM cards allow access to the Internet for instantaneous data uploads, accurate species geolocations, and online identification tools even in remote locations. Local knowledge is plentiful, because every guide has different expertise, and nature tourists should propose collaborations to mobilize such knowledge because all data can be useful (figure 2; Binley and Bennett 2023, Gallagher et al. 2025).
Records from nature tourists should, when possible, include additional information to help ensure species are properly identified. In this example, we complemented our observations of red-chested sunbird (Cinnyris erythrocercus) with a photo. Photographic evidence is important for the identification of this species because these small, fast-moving birds can be confused with the other 26 species of sunbirds present in Rwanda. Many other lines of evidence can be used to identify different groups of species (e.g., sound recordings, tracks, scat). Photograph: Jean Marie Twambaze.
Increasing efforts at the interface between nature tourism and citizen science will require mechanisms to check the quality of the data. In particular, conservation scientists must ensure that quality standards are maintained to draw meaningful inferences from such data. Because species misidentifications are possible, additional metadata (e.g., photos or recordings) should be included with geolocalized species records (figure 2), so that the data can be vetted before mobilizing it for scientific use. Furthermore, observations can be biased, such as toward more colorful or charismatic species (Goldstein et al. 2024). Because approaches to address these issues have been developed (Binley and Bennett 2023), the potential benefit of recording information in data-deficient regions far exceeds these potential drawbacks, especially because more than 90% of the Earth’s surface still lacks biodiversity data (Hughes et al. 2021). It has been recently shown that citizen science data can have useful applications for applied conservation (Gallagher et al. 2025) and that it can contribute biodiversity information comparable to historical collections, at least when considering large data amounts (Eckert et al. 2024). Because hundreds of thousands of nature tourists travel to biodiversity hotspots every year, maximizing their contribution to citizen science appears to be a conservation low-hanging fruit in many poorly known regions.
We note that particular attention should be paid to avoid revealing the locations of species that are in danger of being overexploited. In this context, we recommend that, when appropriate, data locations should be recorded with coarse spatial resolutions (e.g., at a 10-kilometer grain) so that the exact locations of sensitive species are not revealed and that biodiversity data should be deposited in databases with data sharing limitations for sensitive species (e.g., following the Current Best Practices for Generalizing Sensitive Species Occurrence Data from the GBIF; Chapman 2020). These precautions are vital in all cases where the risks associated with poaching, trade, harvesting, and overuse of species pose a threat to their persistence. Mechanisms are already in place and should be further developed so that citizen scientists are not left alone when dealing with these sensitive cases.
In conclusion, we believe that large-scale efforts to record as much biodiversity information as possible through nature tourism are highly desirable. Local experts working as guides already describe biodiversity to tourists, and in our opinion, such tourists should embrace proposing collaborations and recording the information shared with them. This, in the best-case scenario, will facilitate protecting the nature that many such tourists have traveled to see. To facilitate an increase in citizen science activities in conjunction with nature tourism, policymakers interested in biodiversity conservation might consider developing a system of incentives to stimulate tourists in recording their sightings. Still, given what motivates many nature tourists, our hope is that a bottom-up movement will emerge in the coming years, with tourists gradually embracing their potential role for biodiversity conservation as citizen science contributors when participating in nature trips.
Author contributions
CJM led paper writing, data analysis, and visualization. JMT led species identification in Rwanda and provided the photo shown in figure 2. FR proposed and oversaw the project. All authors participated in conceptualization, data collection, and writing of the manuscript.
Author Biography
Caroline J. Martin ([email protected]) is affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Jean Marie Twambaze is a Tour/Safari Guide Licenced by RDB and is a member of the Rwanda Safari Guide Association, Chamber of Tourism, in Nyarutarama, Rwanda. Federico Riva ([email protected]) is affiliated with the Instituut voor Milieuvraagstukken, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
