The Incidental Steward:
Reflections on Citizen Science

 

A search for a radio-tagged Indiana bat roosting in the woods behind her house in New York’s Hudson Valley led Akiko Busch to assorted other encounters with the natural world—local ecological monitoring projects, community-organized cleanup efforts, and data-driven citizen science research. Whether it is pulling up water chestnuts in the Hudson River, measuring beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, or searching out vernal pools, all are efforts that illuminate the role of ordinary citizens as stewards of place. In this elegantly written book, Busch highlights factors that distinguish twenty-first-century citizen scientists from traditional amateur naturalists: a greater sense of urgency, helpful new technologies, and the expanded possibilities of crowdsourcing.

 

The observations here look both to precisely recorded data sheets and to the impressionistic marginalia, scribbled asides, and side roads that often attend such unpredictable outings. While not a primer on the prescribed protocols of citizen science, the book combines vivid natural history, a deep sense of place, and reflection about our changing world. Musing on the expanding potential of citizen science, the author celebrates today’s renewed volunteerism and the opportunities it offers for regaining a deep sense of connection to place.

  • Every subject Akiko Busch touches, she fills with grace. In The Incidental Steward, she has combined her spiritual appreciation of the Hudson Valley with her own gift for elegant prose to chronicle the quiet work of dedicated citizen scientists whose observations and data are helping us all to understand the landscape and prepare for its future. Busch invests the commonplace of the valley--its weeds and vernal pools, herring and eels, bats and bald eagles, and countless other flora and auna--with fresh revelation and the wisdom of one who owns the land.

    Tom Lewis, Skidmore College, author of The Hudson: A History

  • “Sensuously lush and thought-provoking chronicles... This is a beautiful and incisive affirmation of how "full engagement with the natural world enriches the human experience.”

    Donna Seaman, Booklist

  • "Through her evocative prose Akiko Busch reminds us of the beauty of being in and connecting with nature--and that nature is not necessarily something to be solved, but to be explored and in our explorations it helps to revive our sense of wonder. Busch enters the lives of amateurs and professionals who share her love of nature, and readers will greatly enjoy her immersion with fascinating people and places, intimate recorded, as well as her musings about how our relationship to nature has changed in the 21st century. Part of her eloquent plea is that nature is the source of our awe and inspiration, so we'd better work hard to keep from losing it, or we will be lost. I loved it."

    James Prosek, author of Tight Lines

  • "Every once in a while, a place finds someone to speak for it. The hero of The Incidental Steward is the Hudson River and its valley--its woods and rocks, its schedules, changes, species, and mysteries. This book, gracious and intelligent, made me want to go look closely at the river, which I felt I had never seen properly before."

    Alec Wilkinson, author of The Ice Balloon

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How is it possible to hold something so utterly small and transparent in the palm of your hand and still know so little about it? We like to think of transparency as a means to knowledge; when something has clarity, it is revealed. Unless it’s an eel, that is.