Abstract
A group of ecology researchers has approached your committee to ask whether their upcoming project requires ethical approval, and how if it does they should best facilitate consent. While controlled burns are a well-established method of reducing the incidence of uncontrolled bush fires in Australia, there is some debate about how long the burn-off is effective for, and how long it takes for the burnt bushland to regenerate. A local council has recently had a controlled burn near a site of cultural significance which has a number of bushwalks running through it, and has approached this team of researchers to address this issue at that site. The researchers are proposing to create an app that can be downloaded to people’s smartphones so that they can be prompted, at various points on the bushwalk, to take a picture of the undergrowth. This app will then send the photo automatically with a date/timestamp to the researchers. This way they will build up a picture over time of the regeneration as it happens. This will also build community spirit, public understanding of bushfires, and involvement in their prevention and control.
They have developed and designed the app and were about to roll it out when their Head of School had queried whether they had ethical approval for the project. They had not initially sought approval since in their view they were not conducting research on humans, but instead on the environment. So they have come to your committee to be advised whether they need to seek formal approval before beginning. There is some urgency since the controlled burn has already been conducted.