Hong Kong - iNaturalist World Tour

Hong Kong, the ninth stop on the iNaturalist World Tour, is our first visit to Asia.



In Hong Kong, a slowly growing core community of users like @sunnetchan @portioid & @hkmoths have provided a foundation of expertise that has allowed events geared at wider audiences to be successful and well curated. The three spikes on the graph below are 3 such events all organized by @shellfishgene and his colleagues. In order they were
City Nature Challenge 2018 (in which Hong Kong placed 10th), a CNC associated inter-school challenge, and CNC 2019 (in which Hong Kong placed 11th). @shellfishgene's outreach efforts for each of these events has been very impressive!



Insects top the species categories. This is likely in large part a result of @hkmoths expertise in moths.



We’ll be back tomorrow with Russia! In the meantime what can we do to make iNaturalist work better in Hong Kong? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread

@sunnetchan @sk2 @i14ehkreeffish @portioid @alankwok @hkmoths @cosmophasis @morimami @thui @wkcheng71

Posted on July 2, 2019 02:14 PM by loarie loarie

Comments

I was expecting @hkmoths to be on that spot, but pleasantly surprised to see @juhakinnunen in Hong Kong :)

Posted by vijaybarve over 4 years ago

I had the privilege of visiting Hong Kong this past December and going iNatting with @sunnetchan (who notices everything) and hanging out with @shellfishgene. A great community!

Posted by tiwane over 4 years ago

I discovered iNat when I was living in Hong Kong, and it rekindled my child-like wonder at the natural world. Its great that so many other users have that similar sort of curiosity. Its quite an impressive feat for one of the smallest places in the world to be 9th globally and 1st in Asia in terms of number of observations. Hopefully this sort of information will promote and raise awareness in biodiversity, which is a step forward in educating and encouraging the general public to live harmoniously and sustainably with other species.

Posted by robotpie over 4 years ago

Hong Kong IS amazing for biodiversity. The world should see that side of us. :)

Posted by shellfishgene over 4 years ago

Thank you @loarie for organizing the World tour. That's a great idea to show us one of the true value of iNaturalist system - our nature has no boundary and we are all connected!

I'm taking the chance to give a big salutation to @hkmoths , who is the pioneer iNat users in Hong Kong! Another thank you to @shellfishgene who managed so many big events for Hong Kong. Also @barthelemy, @portioid and @biobank-lantauhk. If all the Gweilo :-) can do so many unconditional contribution to the biodiversity and all the knowledge sharing for Hong Kong , why can't we local Chinese do the same?

In the past few years, I'm happy to see a significant grows of iNaturalist community in Hong Kong and our database is being improved. However, there are still much to be discovered, identified and verified. I really hope that more experts (especially the local one) will join us in the future and help setting up something like Projects for Hong Kong Plants , Projects for Hong Kong Birds, Projects for Hong Kong Beetles etc.

Posted by sunnetchan over 4 years ago

@sunnetchan - Thx Sunny. You're right - really need more local Chinese to be involved with organising, not just contributing observations!!!
@shellfishgene & @robotpie - Shaun, Jonathan, wider audience, absolutely. Not just public, but with Aichi targets for 2020 now just 6 months away, how close are the governments to meeting those targets - sadly a very long way. In HK, the govt has only recently published its first BSAP, and appears to a wider audience not to be doing so well in meeting some already very watered down targets. The NGO community is way ahead, through ventures like iNat. We all need to get govts around the world to do better, much better. For the sake of all life on our home - Earth.

Posted by hkmoths over 4 years ago

one thought on the number of observations graphic - would it be possible to use a logarithmic scale for the y-axis, please? That would enable the earlier years' peaks and troughs to be more visible.....

Posted by hkmoths over 4 years ago

The spikes in reporting at the time of the CNC are really impressive and reflect the hard work of @shellfishgene to make these events successful. There is a gradual increase at other times, but it would be great to see more observations throughout the year, and more geographical spread across Hong Kong (some areas are still a bit under-recorded).
@sunnetchan is right that there is still a bias towards observations from western expats, rather than local HK Chinese. There are some locals very active on identifications though, which is a good sign. Finding a way to engage more with the general public, who are often unaware of the diversity of species in HK, would be a big step forward for conservation here.

Posted by johnallcock over 4 years ago

One of the wonders of HK is an unexpected proximity to such a diverse range of species. Firstly in Sai Kung and now in Mid-Levels I can add to my species list almost each time I go out. Getting a record shot and recording on iNat becomes second nature. People regularly stop and ask what I am looking at - I always tell them about iNat. Even for the rank amateur like me the ability to assimilate knowledge quickly is made easy by the brilliant people who add IDs. But half the fun is doing research to try and find the ID for yourself. HK burns with enthusiasm and increasingly it is driven by local Chinese. I would say the phone camera has transformed the ease of recording and the only thing now is to persuade each person who photographs the flora and fauna of HK to go that extra step and use the mobile app to upload in seconds.

Posted by andrewhardacre over 4 years ago

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