On 20 May 2025, Eleonora Barbaccia, the PhD candidate at Politecnico di Milano (Italy), spoke at the Forum Nazionale della Biodiversità (National Biodiversity Forum 2025) at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Her talk, “Empowering Marine Biodiversity Conservation through Citizen Science: Insights from Whale-Watching Experiences across Europe,” presented results from questionnaires administered to citizen scientists during the 2024 eWHALE eDNA sampling campaign, assessing willingness to participate in marine conservation.
The study combined eDNA sampling with whale-watching and citizen-science activities across the Pelagos Sanctuary (Italy), Pico Island (Azores) and Skjálfandi Bay (Iceland). Factor and cluster analyses identified five participant profiles; the most committed group tended to be younger and highly educated. Overall, about 80% reported a positive willingness to contribute to marine conservation.
Logistic regression indicated that environmental awareness and education level positively predicted willingness to pay, while ticket price was a negative predictor.
These findings underscore that whale watching is more than tourism: it can catalyse meaningful connection, scientific engagement and collective action for conservation.
Grateful thanks to our collaborators and partners who made this work possible.
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