marineforests.com

Site Mission

marineforests.com is a non-profit citizen science project website. Its core goal is to bring together global members of the public to build a global distribution database for marine forests — habitats formed by sessile benthic organisms including large macroalgae forests, seagrass beds, and coral reefs — to advance marine ecological conservation and environmental science outreach.

Core Features & Participation Models

The project offers two ways for the public to get involved:

1. General observation submission: Users can upload photos of marine life they have taken, tag the observation date and location, and contribute data without needing to identify the species themselves. All data is also openly accessible to the public globally, and the site also supports direct import of observation records from the iNaturalist platform.
2. "Adopt a Marine Forest" long-term fixed-point monitoring: Participants return to the same observation site on a regular basis to continuously record ecological changes, helping researchers collect long-term data on ecological shifts and fill monitoring gaps in professional research.

Pros & Cons

Pros: The project is fully non-profit. All collected ecological data follows open sharing principles, and is completely free to access for both research institutions and the general public. It also dramatically lowers the barrier for the public to participate in professional ecological research, delivering dual value in both environmental data collection and public science outreach.
Cons: The website only offers an English interface with no Chinese localization, creating a high barrier for average users based in China. The overall interaction design is function-focused with a fairly straightforward, no-frills experience. Additionally, data coverage depends entirely on public participation, so coverage is currently likely limited in regions including Asia.

Suitable Audience & Accessibility

The website is currently directly accessible from within China. It is suitable for marine ecology enthusiasts, non-profit environmental participants, and researchers in related fields based in China. Casual users can also easily get started submitting observations to contribute data to global marine conservation efforts.