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Abstract

I would like to participate in the workshop “Can citizen science contribute to decolonising forest knowledge” to share perspectives from Estonia, where we are establishing a forest-related citizen science living lab as part of the CS4Change project. The living lab aims to explore what kinds of choices need to be made to advance citizen science in ways that can have a transformative impact on forestry, and how diverse stakeholders (e.g., forest owners, environmental NGOs, researchers, environmental authorities) can co-creatively reach these outcomes. As part of the living lab, we will conduct participatory workshops to identify key challenges of forest biodiversity, prescriptions of respective decision-making processes and expectations of their stakeholders, co-design CS model and data collection protocols, carry out joint field observations, and iteratively reflect on the processes and results with stakeholders. A central challenge we seek to address is the legitimacy of citizen science in the eyes of decision-makers. This has proven to be a real barrier in Estonia, for example in the Estonian Fund for Nature lichen campaign, where mainstream forestry actors were reluctant to participate due to distrust of the organisers. In this sense, the living lab provides a small-scale, participatory experiment to study how legitimacy can be built and how grassroots and scientific knowledge can be bridged. My participation in the workshop would provide an opportunity to exchange ideas on these methodological questions, while also situating the Estonian case within broader international perspectives.