Citizen-science programs: Towards transformative biodiversity governance

Biodiversity monitoring is increasingly assessed through citizenscience volunteer programs. Standardized protocols are proposed by scientists to naturalist or non-naturalist volunteers who collect data in a consultative approach. Biodiversity indicators can then be assessed and communicated to inform decision-making at local to international policy levels. Citizen-science can, however, go beyond such top-down approaches and become more transformative, if citizens were to become involved at different stages of observatory construction. On the condition that ecological scientists adopt a reflexive approach on their values and approaches, citizen-science programs could help to transform science-society-politics relationships. In particular, we consider options to combine consultative and transformative approaches, some of which are already experimented. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.