Forest 112

Forest 112 is a citizen science project and network that pairs motivated citizen science networks interested in invasive species and forest protection in Europe with scientists and researchers who devote their time to invasive species study. Formed in partnership with the EU and four IT companies, the goal is to modernize invasive species and pest detection/count methodologies, as the current methods are based on time-consuming, expensive, and relatively inefficient surveys from administrative and professional services. By training citizen scientists, forest management is therefore crowd-sourced, making forest management much more efficient because data is collected in more places and more frequently. Forest 112 released their app in 2020, but prior to the release, they worked with a small set of volunteers to test how easily and efficiently they could engage citizen scientists in teaching them to identify species, capture videos or pictures, and then submit that information for review. The additional benefit of Forest 112 is that the general public becomes more aware of the risk and extent of invasive species, which Forest 112 sees as one of the most pressing issues facing European forests, yet is far less known than, for example, wildfire risk, which garners a lot of public inquiry and interest. Forest 112 doesn’t explicitly state how data is stored and shared, though it is shared with interested governing bodies. There is also no indicator as to how many people currently have downloaded and use the app, which would be a strong indicator of the project’s success. However, seeing as the app is relatively new, these questions could be resolved over time, and the attention being drawn to invasive species should not be discounted.

“Our mission” Forest 112. Accessed July 23, 2020. https://forest112.com/web/

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