Scott Loarie

But when you put all this together, we're getting for the first time a real-time look at how ecosystems are changing on a global scale.

In California, the Department of Fish and Wildlife are using these data to build a marine health early warning system to see how climate change is impacting marine protected areas up and down the coast.

And this is all powered by regular people, not professional scientists.

I mean, so many people think that science isn't for them.

I can't be a scientist.

I don't have a degree, I'm not an expert.

But science isn't just for scientists.

Everybody can participate.

But here's what interests me, is that taking photographs, noticing starfish and plants, it doesn't just change what we know about the natural world.

It changes us.

Because each one of these photographs and observations is this very personal act of curiosity and action and participation.

It changes our relationship with nature.

It doesn't just help science.

It helps us care about the nature that's in our lives.

And I think that's the most important tool for conservation of all of this.

In the early days of iNaturalist, I'm a scientist, so I was just really focused on scaling data.

And I was thinking, if we can get more people involved, we can get more data, that's what we need.

But what I didn't realize is when these communities, they're what's driving this.

And when they reach a certain scale, really interesting things start to happen.

We're seeing people use iNaturalist in ways that we never imagined.