Old Knowledge, New Tools: Citizen Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Vanuatu

Citizen science is often described as a way of widening the net of scientific observation: more people, in more places, collecting more information about the world around them.

But what happens when those observations meet knowledge that has already been accumulating for generations?

In Vanuatu, one climate programme offers a fascinating example of how citizen science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge can work alongside one another.

The context matters. Vanuatu is one of the countries most at risk from the impacts of climate change. For island communities whose lives and livelihoods are closely connected to land and ocean, changing weather patterns, severe storms and other climatic shifts are not distant predictions but very real challenges.

At the same time, another kind of change is taking place.

For generations, ni-Vanuatu communities have used knowledge of the natural world to understand and anticipate weather and seasonal conditions. The flowering or fruiting of a plant, the appearance or behaviour of an animal and other changes in the environment can all carry information. This knowledge has traditionally been learned through observation and passed from one generation to the next.

But that transfer is declining. The ClimateWatch Vanuatu project notes that the circulation and intergenerational sharing of Traditional Knowledge is decreasing.

So Vanuatu faces an interesting double challenge: the climate is changing rapidly, while some of the knowledge that has helped communities read and respond to their environment is becoming less reliably passed on.

Could citizen science help?

Watching nature for change

ClimateWatch Vanuatu is an Earthwatch Australia initiative working with the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department and other local partners.

At its heart is a simple idea: people record what they see happening in nature.

Using the ClimateWatch phone app, citizen scientists across Vanuatu can upload observations about selected plants and animals, with a particular focus on species connected to Traditional Knowledge. The programme monitors species from agricultural, terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Scientists call the timing of natural events such as flowering, fruiting, breeding or migration phenology.

It sounds technical, but the questions are wonderfully straightforward.

When does this tree flower? When does a particular fruit appear? When is an animal first seen? Is something happening earlier or later than people remember?

Repeated observations can begin to reveal how ecosystems are responding to changes in rainfall, temperature and seasons.

But in Vanuatu these observations have another purpose. ClimateWatch data can be combined with contemporary weather forecasting and Traditional Knowledge to help develop forecasting that is meaningful and useful to communities. ClimateWatch observations have already been used in government climate and cyclone forecasting.

When the indicators themselves begin to change

There is an intriguing question beneath all of this.

What happens when climate change starts altering the natural signals people have traditionally relied upon?

If the timing of flowering changes, animals shift their movements, rainfall patterns alter or seasons become less predictable, an environmental indicator that has been reliable for generations may itself begin to behave differently.

This is where the meeting of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and long-term citizen science becomes particularly powerful.

Traditional Knowledge brings generations of observation, context and understanding of place. Citizen science can create a structured record of what is happening now and how those patterns change through time.

One does not need to replace or validate the other.

Instead, they can provide different lenses through which to understand a changing environment.

Citizen science as a bridge between generations

Perhaps the most powerful part of ClimateWatch isn't digital at all.

It is conversation.

The programme has been integrated into school learning linked to Vanuatu's Traditional Knowledge curriculum. Students make ClimateWatch observations while also having opportunities to hear from local Chiefs and other knowledge holders about the natural indicators understood by generations before them.

A child standing beneath a tree with a smartphone may therefore be doing something surprisingly old and new at the same time.

They are looking closely.

They are asking questions.

They are learning what previous generations noticed.

And they are adding today's observation to a record that may help people understand tomorrow.

Citizen science, in this context, becomes more than a method for gathering data. It can create an opportunity for intergenerational exchange: a reason to go outside together, observe something, talk about what it means and ask how it compares with the past.

That distinction is important. An app cannot "save" Traditional Ecological Knowledge, nor should community knowledge simply be treated as another dataset to extract.

Knowledge belongs within communities, cultures and relationships.

What citizen science can do is help create opportunities for that knowledge to continue to be discussed, observed and shared.

Different ways of knowing

Traditional Ecological Knowledge should not need to be proved by Western science before it has value.

Knowledge accumulated through generations of close observation may reveal patterns that a comparatively short scientific study could never have had enough time or continuity to see.

Equally, satellites, weather stations, scientific instruments and long-term datasets can identify changes that are difficult to observe from a single place.

The opportunity comes when different ways of knowing can inform one another without assuming that one automatically sits above the other.

ClimateWatch Vanuatu is beginning to explore exactly that space.

Since launching in 2023, the programme has recorded more than 1,000 observations from more than 200 registered users across every province of Vanuatu. Eleven ClimateWatch trails have also been established around the country, with Community Climate Champions helping others learn how to participate.

A lesson for ocean citizen science

There is an important lesson here for those of us interested in widening participation in ocean science too.

We often think about citizen science in practical terms: sailors recording wildlife sightings, divers photographing individual animals, communities monitoring reefs or vessels carrying scientific equipment.

But meaningful participation isn't simply about recruiting more observers or gathering more data.

It also means asking whose knowledge matters, who determines the questions, who benefits from the information collected and what knowledge already exists in the places where a project operates.

For visiting sailors in particular, that is worth remembering.

Travelling by sea gives us an extraordinary opportunity to observe the natural world.

Cruisers may spend weeks moving between islands, cross stretches of ocean rarely visited by researchers and return repeatedly to places over many years.

Those observations can be valuable.

But arriving somewhere with an app does not automatically make an observation useful.

The best citizen science connects participants with locally identified needs, researchers and communities, and respects the knowledge and priorities already present.

That is one reason we're interested in learning more about ClimateWatch Vanuatu and whether observations made by visiting sailors could appropriately contribute to the programme.

But there is a bigger lesson here too.

Citizen science can help us notice more.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge reminds us that people have been noticing for a very long time.

In a country experiencing profound environmental change, perhaps the most exciting possibility is not choosing between old knowledge and new tools, but finding respectful ways for generations of experience, community observation and contemporary science to help us understand what is changing — and what we might do next.