Vanier College is proud to announce that the newly created Campus Biodiversity Network will be launched during the United Nations COP 15 Conference on Biodiversity to be held in Montreal December 7-19, 2022. The new Campus Biodiversity Network is a member of the COP15 Collective for Civil Society that brings together over 80 Quebec organizations. The Collective will be hosting a December 11th public panel discussion on "The Power of Citizen Science in Urban Spaces" during the UN international Conference.
One of the panelists is Vanier teacher Katherine Collin who spearheaded the creation of the Campus Biodiversity Network. The network is a team effort of students and faculty working together to create a community of higher-education institutions that are tallying their biodiversity observations, and thereby sharing an appreciation for campus greenspace and biodiversity. Currently, 15 Quebec colleges and universities have joined the Campus Biodiversity Network.
Specifically, the Campus Biodiversity Network is an umbrella project on the biodiversity-observation-sharing platform iNaturalist that regroups individual collection projects associated with specific institutions. Run by the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic, as well as by the Canadian Wildlife Federation in Canada, iNaturalist aims to connect people to nature and to document scientifically valuable information garnered from these encounters with nature.
The CBN will work to create a snapshot of four metrics related to campus biodiversity and thereby provide an important baseline on the number of observations, number of observers, number of species, and number of identifiers. Observations that are validated as "research grade" are then forwarded to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility in Denmark that provides a database for international research use.
Thanks to an Entente Canada-Québec grant, the Campus Biodiversity Network will also run a pilot project of nature walks with informative panels, bird feeders, and citizen-science outreach at four college campuses: Vanier, John Abbott College, Champlain College Saint-Lambert, and Champlain College Lennoxville.
"The Campus Biodiversity Network uses the brilliance of crowd-sourced biodiversity observations to compile data for our institutions, while encouraging everyone to get out and explore the rich, often hidden biodiversity that lies on our campus greenspaces," explains Katherine Collin. "One way to understand the value of the CBN is to attend the COP15 Collective panel discussion."
Details on the Panel Discussion:
The panel discussion on "The Power of Citizen Science in Urban Spaces" is open to the public and will be held on Sunday, December 11, 2022 at 2:00 -3:30 PM at UQAM, 175 President Kennedy, Coeur des Sciences, salle Chaufferie. The panelists are: James Pagé, Biodiversity Specialist, Canadian Wildlife Federation; Jackie Martin, Urban Agriculture and Biodiversity Coordinator, Concordia University; Julie Maurais, founding member, Rosemère vert; and Katherine Collin, Founding member, Campus Biodiversity Network, Co-Organizer Technoparc Oiseaux.
List of institutions members of the Campus Biodiversity Network:
- Champlain College St-Lawrence
- Dawson College
- Cégep de Saint Jérôme
- John Abbott College
- Cégep Lévis
- Cégep Saint-Laurent
- Cégep de Valleyfield
- Vanier College
- Champlain College
- Lennoxville Champlain
- College Saint-Lambert
- Collège Ahuntsic
- Collège de Rosemont
- Collège Lionel-Groulx
- Concordia University: Loyola Campus Concordia
- University: Sir Georges Williams Campus
