Introduction
The Species Recovery Trust (SRT) is dedicated to rescuing the rarest plant, insect, and animal species in the UK from extinction. Established by Dominic Price in 2012, the charity’s ambitious goal is to remove 50 species from the edge of extinction by 2050. Their work demands dynamic conservation strategies, grounded in detailed scientific knowledge, and effective fieldwork carried out across their 1,200 conservation sites nationwide.
The Challenge
The SRT operates with a small, dedicated core team of ten conservation officers who rely heavily on a dispersed network of expert ecologists and local volunteers. Covering 1,200 sites requires consistent, regular monitoring, with frequency dictated by the criticality of the species.
Dom needed a reliable digital data collection solution that could simultaneously save conservation officers time and be intuitive for volunteers. The Trust had previously attempted to use generalised GPS tracking software, but it proved unreliable: it lacked the specific features needed for ecological surveys, records were being accidentally deleted, and it offered no seamless way to export the collected field data into central data centres.
The Solution
Dom discovered Coreo through a friend and quickly realised its potential for precise, customisable data capture. The Coreo team worked closely with Dom to create a custom survey which meets their specific needs – rather than creating a brand-new record for every visit, the survey is designed to simply add a new date and observation record onto an existing site.
“It felt like a very iterative process, and any initial teething problems were quickly fixed by the Coreo team. The app is getting better and better all the time, and the whole team and the volunteers love Coreo.”
Dominic Price | Director of The Species Recovery Trust
The Results
Coreo delivered two immediate and powerful benefits that directly support The Species Recovery Trust’s mission:
- Volunteer Empowerment and Retention: Dom is thrilled that all volunteers, regardless of age or experience, find the app easy to use from the outset. The app’s intuitive design is vital for reducing barriers to participation and ensuring volunteer retention.
- Pinpoint Accuracy for Species: Coreo has been critical in enabling the team and volunteers to locate the exact observation point quickly and easily. This is vital when searching for extremely rare plants in locations without landmarks, such as the featureless expanse of the New Forest bog. Now, officers and volunteers can use Coreo to align their current position with the pre-set site marker, giving them full confidence that they have returned to the correct location.
This improved workflow and data integrity allow the team to maximize their time in the field.
“Data underpins everything and having that data in your hand when you are on site is brilliant. It enables you to review and plan whilst on site which is much more powerful than having to do this retrospectively back in the office.”
Dominic Price | Director of The Species Recovery Trust
Looking Ahead: Data Sharing and Strategic Focus
It is just under a year that The Species Recovery Trust has been using Coreo and Dom is looking forward to the ease of being able to export all the data to the local data centres in January at the click of a button.
If you are looking for a customisable digital solution to transform your environmental data collection project, get in touch with us to find out more about how we can help.