Grace Gillard & Jodi Rowley, Citizen scientists are spotting more and more rare frogs on private land, The Conversation, 19 January 2026
Almost two-thirds of Australia is privately owned. But most of our scientific understanding of how threatened species are faring comes from research done on public lands. Traditional biodiversity surveys by professional scientists are time and resource intensive and navigating access to private lands can be tricky.
This means there’s a huge gap in our knowledge amid worsening biodiversity loss. That’s where citizen science comes in. Every year, millions of Australian species records are logged by members of the public using smartphone apps. This flood of data is revolutionising conservation, producing large flows of species data and connecting people to nature.