Adventurists
/New wave of outdoor adventurists, championing exercise, adventure and love for nature. Engaged in conservation due to first hand awareness of issues. Spending lots of time in different habitats. Influencers with networks. Many using social channels to highlight work.
Stimulus
The NIU's most resourceful officers have been gathering intelligence for this brief. Check out their intel below...
Inspiration: Airbeam is a wearable air monitor that maps, graphs & crowdsources your pollution exposures in real-time.
“It’s all about portability and weight. As long as it’s not heavy I have no real problem. Also of course pricing...or whether those wearables can be put in places so although they’re portable they could be stationary.”
Inspiration: TZOA. Wearable, smart-phone connected sensors to measure your air quality, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, ambient light and UV (sun) exposure.
“I think surfing as a platform has massive potential to deepen our connection and understanding of the oceans, and I think it’s nowhere near being activated.”
“We look at check sheets. What did you see, where did you see it, when did you see it. Instead of having to write it all down, you can just tick a box. Put the animals on a sheet and so you can just tick them off.”
“Nature allows me to detox from the busy life I lead. It allows me to turn off technology, tune into the birds, to see the views and to put everything into perspective.”
“It’s all about portability and weight. As long as it’s not heavy I have no real problem. Also of course pricing...or whether those wearables can be put in places so although they’re portable they could be stationary”
Inspiration: Adventurers & Scientists For Conservation. Mobilising the outdoor community to gather and share scientific data, driving conservation around the world.
“Apps are great but connectivity is a problem with some of them. I can’t get reception when I’m up a mountain.”
Inspiration: Free soil collection kits mailed out to encourage participation in a defined project run by the University of Oklahoma.
Inspiration: MapKnitter. Packaging up ‘products’ in form of physical kits + online infrastructure to help citizens design and capture meaningful data on projects.
“There is opportunity to find commonalities in local places between different groups around a common issue, I see this more and more around the development of coast lines or destruction of habitats. Local and indigenous communities connecting with surfers to collaborate.”
Inspiration: Innovative collaboration between science and surfers to collect seawater samples.
Ideas
In February 2016, nature intelligence officers Swarmed around this challenge for 48 hours. Here are the initial ideas...
Idea: The Waiting Room. Exciting Adventurists into noticing nature in their down time e.g. local species watch-outs, local issue call outs, and place-based photo and story sharing.
Idea: Building a culture of nature noticing through adventurists.
What's next?
The NIU is working on a plan to hatch the ideas with the most potential to get us humans noticing nature. We'd love to hear from you if you have more ideas to add to the mix. Please leave your thoughts in the comments box below.
