The Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM), the Cos4Cloud project, the marine environmental services company Anèl·lides – Serveis ambientals marins, the environmental association Xatrac and three diving centres, Oceanicos, Escafandra Calafell and Plàncton diving have joined forces to promote the ‘Return to the Sea’ campaign, a citizen science initiative which seeks to collect the maximum number of observations of marine biodiversity on the Catalan coastline in July, August and September.
‘Return to the Sea’ is encouraging citizens to (re)connect with nature after all these months at home, to discover a wide variety of marine species and to share it with others.
In addition to being a tool of learning, citizen science is used to get information which the entire scientific community can easily access. “It is a very economical way to get data on extensive areas. We want citizen science to become a part of research and decision-making with regard to environmental policies”, says Jaume Piera, the ICM researcher associated with CREAF and the coordinator of the Cos4Cloud project.
