Earthwatch Europe’s international work: across Europe, Oman and Africa

4th August 2025

Our CEO, Harry Barton, explains the breadth of Earthwatch Europe’s international work beyond Europe and why it is needed.

I’ve been at Earthwatch Europe for six months now. It’s been a steep learning curve. I’ve been lucky enough to help plant Tiny Forests, and meet people who have been supporters for decades.

I’ve taken part in the Great UK WaterBlitz and heard stories about communities in more than ten different countries taking action to improve their local environment.

One thing I’ve learned is there’s more to Earthwatch Europe than our name would imply. We work across the continent, but we are also active in Oman and much of Africa. 

It’s a sad reality that the people most affected by the environmental crises are often the least likely to have any say in future policies. That’s why Earthwatch Europe’s international work outside Europe is so critical. 

The environmental crisis is global

We support a project in Oman, giving students there the opportunity to attend science camps, learn from their peers, and take study trips into the wild.

The aim isn’t just to support the current generation of conservation practitioners, researchers and policy makers, but to build the next one. ‘Training the trainer’ is setting the ball rolling, so these communities can become self-supporting and play a greater role in protecting their own natural heritage.

We’re also working with communities in seven African countries who are interested in citizen science. Pollution of our rivers is a curse wherever you live, but in many parts of Africa it can mean the difference between life and death.  

According to the charity Innovation Africa, contaminated water kills 1.4 million people each year. That’s more than all forms of violence combined, including war¹.

Children are the most affected, with diarrhoea killing around half a million every year according to UNICEF². That’s about one child every minute. 

In 2022, globally, at least 1.7 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces according to the World Health Organisation³. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the worst affected regions – at current rates, just 37% of the population will be using safely managed drinking water by 2030⁴.

The problem is set to get worse, because of climate change. Africa is already the least water-secure region of the world⁵. And according to the State of the Climate in Africa 2022 Report, the African continent is warming faster than the global average⁶.

Much of this is preventable. It needs investment of course, but one of the basic building blocks is good data. What state are our rivers and waterbodies in, and what is causing the problems?

Getting hold of this data can be difficult enough in the UK. But in Africa, many waterways are miles from the nearest road, along tracks that are difficult to bring even the toughest off-road vehicle, and the riverbanks are anything but safe.

Then there’s the sheer scale. Just one river, the Zambezi, is over 2,000 miles long, has more than a dozen tributaries and drains half a million square miles of land⁷.

This is where citizen science comes in. If you want to know the concentration of every potentially risky chemical in your water supply, then you need an expert and some expensive kit.  

But you can understand a lot about the health of your river using much cheaper and more user-friendly equipment. If communities along the length of rivers can test the water, you can quickly generate a huge body of data. The same is true for soils, air quality or biodiversity.

The results of this work can be added to data collected by government agencies, water companies and universities to provide a powerful body of knowledge. Yet there is more to citizen science than just a sack of data.

When local people gather scientific information, they trust it more, they understand what it’s telling them, and they are more motivated to act as a result.

Citizen science is a powerful way to drive change for the better. And it’s a movement that’s growing.

Earthwatch Europe’s international work

We currently collaborate with organisations and individuals on projects in Oman and several countries in Europe and Africa. We look forward to continuing our work with current partners and supporting further positive action for nature in these regions. 

We are part of an international federation that covers most of the globe. Earthwatch US operates across the Americas. Earthwatch India in the Asian subcontinent, Earthwatch Japan and Australia in the Far East and the Antipodes. 

Each of these separate organisations tackles environmental issues in a slightly different way, but ultimately all are trying to engage people in finding solutions to the crises we face.  

One of the strengths of the federation is its fluidity – we adapt our approach to local circumstances; we can set up offices where they are needed. There is no one way of doing things and no head office issuing decrees across the globe.

I believe this is one of Earthwatch’s greatest strengths, because if we want to make real progress in tackling the environment crises, we must start at the local level. It’s here that we see innovation, cooperation and positive solutions, based on local knowledge and understanding. 

There are some signs that this local knowledge is feeding into government plans and strategies. In Sierra Leone and Zambia governments are using citizen science to monitor against Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We can learn much from how these African countries, at multiple levels, have embraced using citizen science for water monitoring.

How fantastic it would be if we could see this happening in every country, in every river catchment, in every city, whether we’re talking about soils, water or air quality. That would be a future worth fighting for.  

¹ Innovation Africa 9 Deadly Diseases You Can Get from Drinking Dirty Water – Innovation: Africa

² World Health Organisation, 2024: Diarrhoeal disease

³ World Health Organisation, 2023 Drinking-water

⁴ World Health Organisation, World Bank, UNICEF 2022: State of the World’s Drinking Water 9789240060807-eng.pdf

⁵ United Nations University 2023: Global Water Security 2023 Assessment | United Nations University

⁶ Observer Research Foundation 2024: Africa: Climate change, water stress, droughts, and conflict

⁷ Zambezi River | Physical Features | Britannica

Featured image, © Plan Malawi