Volume 3: Citizen Science in India.
The third episode of our CitSciAsia Meets… interview series has been posted, with Dr Arshiya Bose interviewed in Hong Kong by Vincent Cheng.
CitSciAsia Meets… is an interview series focusing on the citizen scientists in Asia. If you’ve still not seen the CitizenScience.Asia youtube channel you should check it out and subscribe here. We have recorded a number of interviews with Citizen Science practitioners from across Asia and beyond, including previous postings covering Japanese perspectives on the City Nature Challenge and citizen science-based environmental protection strategies in China. We hope these providing videos providing a forum for Citizen Scientists interested in sharing their stories with the community and the world.
After covering China in our last video we are happy to move onto the next most populous country in the world: India. Citizen Science is a growing phenomenon in the country, and many projects such as Bird Count India have been particularly prominent and active for a number of years. CitizenScience.Asia had the pleasure to meet with Dr Arshiya Bose from Black Baza Coffee Co. in Karnataka, South Western India, who is working on an experiment to reconcile agricultural production with biodiversity conservation. Carrying out extremely grass roots Citizen Science work, Arshiya works with over 650 smallholder coffee growers in the Western Ghats mountain range to assess local biodiversity, helping them protect and restore forests to assure them of a secure livelihood. With a PhD on Coffee from Cambridge University, her research findings led to her founding Black Baza Coffee (see https://www.blackbazacoffee.com).
Our interviewer Vincent Chung met up with Arshiya in Hong Kong to discuss her work at Black Baza, and find out more on the link between biodiversity and a good cup of coffee. As well as what the challenges are in carrying out this unique model of Citizen Science supported agriculture.
We have more videos to post and more public events to record (including this one on the City Nature Challenge in Malaysia), so keep watching the channel to keep informed in what is happening in Citizen Science across our vast continent of Asia. If you’d like to be interviewed or share stories and videos relating to Citizen Science please let us know.
CitSciAsia Meets… Dr Arshiya Bose was originally published in The CitizenScience.Asia Journal on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
