This Friday morning, February 17, young and old alike rushed to the Galion car park to take part in the biodiversity discovery hike organized by the Saint-Martin National Natural Reserve Management Association (RNN) in collaboration with the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance.
The actions to discover the fauna and flora offered by the Saint-Martin Nature Reserve are always educational, convivial moments rich in encounters. The event this Friday, February 17 had the particularity of inviting the public, made up of around forty adults and children, to use the new ObsIdentify application, a tool for observing and identifying wildlife and flora that we owe to the Observation International foundation, in collaboration with Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Netherlands) and Natuurpunt and Natagora (Belgium). With a simple photo taken of an animal or a plant, ObsIdentify not only makes it possible to obtain the name of the species but to actively participate in feeding the web of data contributing to biological research and knowledge of nature. . Led by a shock pair from the RNN, namely Vincent Oliva, head of environmental education, and Julien Chalifour, head of the "Missions and scientific monitoring" unit, the ObsIdentify hike began near the mangroves with the presentation of the Réserve Naturelle, its educational and awareness-raising roles, and many fascinating anecdotes shared by the two biodiversity professionals. The usefulness of promoting an ObsIdentify application is to raise public awareness to actively participate in the observation of biodiversity in order to share information with scientists. If the application is sometimes wobbly in terms of recognition, even in the event of false observation, persevere in its use, the tool will learn from this error to improve. ObsIdentify contributes, with each photo sent, to identify and geolocate the different species such as mangroves (red, black, white or grey) which no longer hold any secrets for the group of participants thanks to Vincent and Julien, or the majestic big egret, observed last Friday, flying above the Galion mangrove. _VX
ObsIdentify is available for free in the App Store and Google Play
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