By Erin Knutson

A group of citizen-scientists led by Dave Zehnder, project lead for Farmland Advantage in B.C., became the test group for a pilot research project created by Bird Studies Canada to capture and identify endangered species by uploading photographs of sightings to the e-bird Canada website, using their new iNaturalist app.

As part of a test case and tour of the Zehnder ranch during the 23rd annual Wings Over the Rockies Festival, Zehnder spoke on the importance of conservationist efforts involving farmers, scientists, government, and the public concerning declining biodiversity in the area and across the globe.

“I became a lot more engaged in conservation, and now I’m leading this project called Farmland Advantage, which is an international program where they pay farmers to take extraordinary care of the environment. It’s popular in Europe and has been for many years. A farmer may enhance something like a creek or a riparian area beside the creek for the benefit of the ecology and get paid for it,” he said.

There was a need in B.C. to manage land bases better to prevent degradation to the environment and to preserve and restore biodiversity while creating best practices for farmers in the care and monitoring of their land. Payment for eco-services is an initiative that has taken hold in the agriculture industry to reward farmers for exacting new measures.

“We saw an opportunity when we started, and we thought this might have some value because agriculture can be a threat to the environment, and it can become very polluted, partially because of farming activities.”

Ecosystem services, which includes birds, clean water, and all of the elements that come from healthy functioning ecosystems have been in decline for some time, according to Zehnder.

“We’ve moved from a more pristine landscape towards a more urbanized landscape, and we’re looking at changing the trajectory, and that’s where we think this program fits in,” he said.

Farms that maximize their agricultural production lean towards monoculture and as a result have limited diversity on their farm to make the best economic return on their land base as possible. Zehnder’s work is to teach farmers about the possibilities of their land and to utilize it for more than food production.

“We are teaching farmers that their farmland can do a lot more than producing food. It can produce other benefits as well, and if we look at optimizing the mix of food production and the ecological aspects, that’s probably a better way to think about things. This e-birding program is an attempt to look at that. It engages citizens and farmers in documenting bird species and adding to data collection,” he said.

Valley bottoms are a big concern, where 900 species live in the lower elevation. People often think wildlife is in the high alpine areas, but only 30 species are found in those areas comparatively, and the majority of biodiversity intersects with agricultural and urban land.

“We want things to go on the uptrend—species loss is still occurring. The farmer would put into action specific measures, for example, to fence out cattle that are impacting a creek. It’s a contract to ensure the health of the creek will improve.”

Citizen-science and data collection through apps like iNaturalist are some of the methods that are being tested to measure riparian areas. Species at risk are the targeted population, and farmers and scientists understand this, according to Zehnder, who emphasized that payment for ecosystems services could save millions, even billions of dollars in expensive restoration efforts.

“There is a correlation between agriculture and wildlife. We want to capture animals as data and use that evidence to inform our efforts.”

Farmers have been trained to capture data and citizen-scientists are also being educated to obtain data, as in test programs like the citizen-science tour Zehnder facilitated on his land.

“We are exploring data collection with the iNaturalist app. We were using e-bird, but iNaturalist has been developed with Bird Studies Canada by bird experts involved in monitoring. The data will be captured and presented to Bird Studies Canada as part of a reporting system,” said Zehnder.

For more information on Bird Studies Canada and the iNaturalist app.

Lead image: Dave Zehnder and citizen-scientists test out the iNaturalist app during the 23rd Wings Over the Rockies Festival. Photos by Erin Knutson

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