Capturing our Coast was a citizen science project aimed at understanding the distribution and distributional changes of intertidal organisms across the UK. Citizens were trained to identify a set of marine organisms known to respond to climate changes with shifts in their distributional range. For three years, training events, volunteer support and engagement was conducted from seven university, research and conservation organisations around the country. Other organisations brought expertise on science, policy and volunteer engagement to the project. The activities included tracking the distribution of invasive species, identification of barnacle species, presence of wading birds, among others. Since January 2016, CoCoast has trained almost 3,000 citizen scientists to carry out transect surveys of marine species on UK rocky shores. This army of volunteers continues to collect data across UK coasts, contributing to gaps in our knowledge of marine biodiversity and providing a baseline to explore responses to environmental change. In addition, CoCoast also offered a number of other activities that anyone can take part in to contribute to understanding and conservation of the UK coast. Many of these are continuing so you can still get involved.
