Citizens of the Sea
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Citizens of the Sea
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A pioneering citizen science programme is mobilising blue-water sailors to chart marine biodiversity and monitor ocean health across the Pacific. By combining everyday sailing with innovative research tools, participants are helping to fill critical knowledge gaps about how climate change and biodiversity loss are reshaping the world’s largest ocean by transforming yacht crews into ocean data collectors.
While voyaging, sailors play a hands-on role in advancing marine science. They collect seawater for environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis that can reveal thousands of species from a single sample, use smartphone cameras to generate 3D models of coral reefs, and log environmental variables directly from their onboard instruments.
Each contribution helps build a powerful dataset that deepens understanding of the Pacific’s ecosystems and supports conservation on a global scale.
WHAT
Enable sailors to collect Pacific data for scientific analysis
HOW
Collect eDNA, reef images, and ocean data while sailing
WHERE (LAND)
Attribute
WHERE (SEA)
Attribute
Our sailors send richer data more cost effectively than has ever been possible. We have demonstrated that citizen scientists can generate data at an unprecedented scale, identifying 1 billion DNA sequences from 600 samples across 1.5 million square kilometres of ocean. This has been achieved for around 10% of the cost of traditional ocean data acquisition.
Citizens of the Sea
