Word: earthwatch
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...sponsor of the hamster hunt was Earthwatch, a nonprofit organization conceived in the early 1970s by Brian Rosborough, a lawyer. Since scientists always need more manpower for their studies and never have enough money, Rosborough reasoned that they would welcome paying "Earth patriots" eager to spend a week or two on scholarly expeditions in remote places. At first Earthwatch concentrated on the physical sciences, such as the study of volcanoes and eclipses, but as public interest grew in things natural, the organization acquired a strong environmental flavor. This year more than 3,000 EarthCorps volunteers will head...
...close to endearing animals like whales and orangutans, but some more specialized projects have been successful as well. There seems to be no trouble, for example, getting volunteers to walk miles of beach all night long in search of egg-laying turtles. For another, less appealing assignment, Blue Magruder, Earthwatch's director of public affairs, somehow found eight paying volunteers for a study of the use of sewage in agriculture in Ohio...
...organization has the respect of the normally suspicious conservation community. Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, says Earthwatch fills a unique role, "allowing people to get involved with science or conservation without stepping on anybody else's toes." Michael Deland, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, says Earthwatch is "precisely the kind of innovative concept that needs to be built upon in the coming decades...
Would-be EarthCorps members, who range in age from 16 to over 80, complete an application form listing their skills and interests, a process that allows Earthwatch to match volunteers with appropriate projects. Living conditions vary from camping out to comfortable dorms. About 1 recruit out of 20 turns out to be a problem (a scientist working underwater in the Canary Islands discovered that one self-styled scuba diver could not even swim), but many others become Earthwatch regulars. Biologist Wynne-Edwards says 70% of her volunteers last year were repeaters...
...gather the information needed to fashion effective policies. "We've got to get the earth in intensive care, to start to monitor the vital signs of the planet," said John Eddy of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. This could be done by launching an International Earthwatch Program, possibly under the aegis of the United Nations, to coordinate multinational research projects and centralize essential data on the state of the world. Such an umbrella program could pool the results of hundreds of existing research efforts. A prime candidate for this program would be the Mission to Planet Earth...