Background to the Plantlife projects
Plantlife is a charitable based organisation that encourages the surveying of wild plant species, through supported surveys and training workshops. They can carry out Citizen Science with community groups on request with their National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS), also known as the National Plant Monitoring Scheme, which works well at both individual and group level.
How the Plantlife projects work
Wildflowers Count survey is a common plants survey that is ideal for Community groups as it can work at a variety of levels. From the simple Wildflower Path on which the presence of key species along a 1km route is recorded annually, to the Wildflower Plots where 5m x5m plots are studied and the percentage abundance of key plants is recorded to note change over time. Plantlife can offer full colour printed ID guides of the key species to record, and instruction booklets and recording sheets to support community groups to record.
How Plantlife involve communities
Plantlife can arrange day-long training workshops with groups if they express an interest. They can also support all volunteers via telephone or email from the Plantlife Scotland Office for any administrative or technical queries. Various community groups have already been involved in Wildflowers Count and though the groups differed in structure and character, Citizen Science worked well within the flexibility of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS).