Learning from successful long-term citizen science programs

Citizen science is increasingly recognised as an important, indeed necessary, contribution to environmental research and policy, well for fostering stronger relationships between scientists the broader community. Well-established citizen projects offer valuable insights by virtue of long-term volunteers sustained monitoring activities. Here we draw on two Australia’s longest running projects, Waterwatch Australian Shorebird Monitoring Program (formerly Shorebirds 2020), argue that such reflect successful in terms their program persistence, reputation impact. This success has been enabled (1) developing a clear vision; (2) effective knowledge management; (3) relationship building; (4) meaningful volunteer engagement; (5) capacity adapt change. We recommend new emerging embed these principles development, particularly those aiming generate longitudinal datasets while building motivated, informed connected communities.